Fantiality Infinity
by LoweFantasy
Summary: Sequel to Fantiality. Dark Link (or Shadow as he calls himself), was created to be nothing more than a monster-an obstacle for the Hero to overcome. Now he has even lost his only friend and love to the Hero who hardly understands what he has stolen. But Shadow was never one for self-pity, and he'd be damned if he left his fate to some god-forsaken Japanese storyteller.
1. What is Love?

**Not sure if this will stay a oneshot or if I'll tackle a sequel to Fantiality. I wrote it mainly because I was too tired to do anything productive, and Shadow is awesome.**

Fantiality Infinity

by Lowe Fantasy

I wasn't suppose to be awake. I'm sure Shadow had meant to sneak out all invisible like the ninja he thought he was, but I saw him through the banister outside my bedroom on the floor below. The moonlight shot his shadow across the floor, a black figure just as dark as he.

My first instinct was to run down and stop him—but why? What claim had I to him? And he had told me he would be leaving, out on his own quest, wherever that was. Probably to find his own identity rather than borrowing Link's, being his dark side and all.

And even if I did try to stop him, I wouldn't know what to say.

Nonetheless, as soon as he stepped out of the pillar of moonlight, I found myself running for the stairs, the slap of my naked feet miniscule in the silent hallway.

"Shadow!"

The thing about Dark Link was that he, well, blended into the shadows. His nickname didn't come from a genius.

Thus, for a quiet moment filled with my thundering heartbeat, I thought I was too late.

But then I heard the soft tapping of boots and he reappeared, just outside of the light of the moon.

"What? Forget to thank me for all my selfless, compassionate work? Probably be the most I'll ever do in three lifetimes, so of course you're grateful."

"Your arrogance is astounding."

"How very astute of you. What do you want? Can't you see I got an aimless journey to go on?" his eyes narrowed—darker versions of Link's. "Shouldn't you be in bed with your hero?"

I didn't miss the venom in his voice, and did my best to hide my flinch. My face flushed and I clenched my fists.

"What do you take me for? Some kind of whore?"

"That all depends, why are you here? I'm not going to try and change your mind about him, and if you're thinking of changing it for me, forget it. I don't need someone so wishy-washy."

"Just stop with the annoying butt-hurting, I came down here to say good-bye because we happen to be, and I quote from you, 'friends,' and that's what friends do!"

"Well maybe I don't even know what it means to be a friend," he growled. "I was created to be a man-killing monster, after all."

"Then don't even bother to think you were ever in love with me, then, because you probably never even understood what it meant!"

Shadow, for probably the first time since I had known him, visibly darkened around his cheeks. Despite the twitch to his eyebrow, he gave me a taunt, sarcastic sort of grin.

"I can't believe you were able to say that out loud without squeezing your knees together like some blushing bride." He snickered, though it came a little delayed as though as an afterthought. In that brief pause I saw a flash of the hurt in his eyes, so quick I could have been mistaken. But I was no fool, as Shadow seemed to want to take me as. So, taking a deep breath, I stretched out my fingers and let go of my rage.

"Shadow," I said, "I'll miss you."

He met my eye then, a little surprised, though he hid it well by crossing his arm across his chest and smirking.

"Oh, so maybe you do feel something for me then?"

I scowled. "Friends don't have to be lovers, dimwit."

"I wouldn't know," he said with a dry sniff. "I've never had a need for either."

An awkward silence fell between us. I could feel myself losing my self-assurance as I felt a twinge of guilt. That's right. Shadow was just Dark Link after all. He only had a cameo moment in the game, and any life outside of the Water Temple had never been written or bothered with. What had Shadow done with most of his existence? Probably not get friendly with other characters. He wasn't one of them, after all.

Shadow smirk fell into a glower. "Stop with the pity. If you're any friend of mine, you will spare me."

He took a few steps toward me and into full view of the moonlight. He hadn't changed a bit over our adventure. He still looked like the black and white version of Link, almost unnaturally so with the pallor of his skin and the ebony of his hair. He still wore the clothes he had been created with and the black and silver carbon copies of Link's shield and Master Sword.

And seeing that all brought out in the moonlight, which only heightened the contrast between light and dark, made me want to cry.

Shadow would have never forgiven me if I did, though, and I swallowed it down hard.

"I can try and make a story for you," I said. "Miyamoto owes me that much for saving his story."

"You're still looking at me like that. I said stop."

"Don't you want your own identity though? I could make you look different from Link, maybe give you a past-"

"I can write my own story! I don't need to be controlled by another storyteller!"

His voice boomed across the hallway in his rage and I recoiled back, alarmed of the mistake I had made. Of course. Of course he would want to have his own choice. At the same time he didn't have to freak out on me like that, he could have just told me what he wanted me to write. That had been his original intention in helping me out from the beginning, wasn't it?

But something wasn't right here.

"Shadow, why are you hurt?"

"Because you're a moron."

I paused, then looked down at my feet. "I guess that's somewhat true."

When he didn't say anything, I figured I had done enough damage for the night. "Whatever you say, I'll still miss you, and I'll feel whatever I want towards you, even if it's pity. You have a sad story, Shadow. That's just how it is. And I care enough about you to wish for better." I swallowed hard again to get rid of the need to cry. "Now go off on your stupid journey already, you're acting like a jerk. I'll see you later."

I turned with the intention of not looking back and giving him the satisfaction of seeing how much he had flustered and offended me. I had even managed to get my thoughts turned towards my warm bed upstairs.

But his hand caught my wrist, cool and firm.

He yanked me hard to him and wrapped his arms tight around my waist. I didn't even have the time to push away when he pressed his lips hard against mine, breathing in deep as though his very inhalation could bring me closer. I could smell his musk, so much like Link's except icy and dark, like freshly cut grass at midnight.

Then he had let go and had stepped back into the shadows, leaving me wide-eyed and cold in the moonlight.

"Maybe I don't know what love is," he whispered. "But I can't think of anything else that could be more agonizing than this."

And then he was gone, vanished into the darkness which was his namesake.


	2. Water Temple

**Since this is my first story for fans, as a sequel to a previous story I wrote, it is going to be the first story that isn't going to be under my 'once a week update' guarantee. This is both good and bad. Good because that means whenever I write something, I'll post it, instead of waiting for the next week like I'm doing with my other stories. Bad because I could go two or three weeks without updating. **

**Let me know what ya'll think. ^.^ I'm glad I've made some old readers happy with this, though. Think my friend will probably scream off my ear when I tell her about it, and she doesn't even play Legend of Zelda. I think she just like's Shadow, personally. Something to do with angsty, not so angsty bad boys. *shrug* Whatever. On with the show!**

**Shadow**

I was never one for lying to myself. When you're born alone to the world, all you have is yourself, and lying would only warp what little power over your own reality that you had.

But at that moment, stepping away from her, I dearly wanted to lie, and to believe it with all of whatever I had to call a soul. I wanted to lie and say that I didn't care, that I was better off without the temptation of a storyteller's power. I knew I would have been sorely tempted to manipulate her if she had chosen to me, and what little I understood of love told me that was wrong. How do I know this? Because you can't be created truly evil unless you understand what is good.

You can't truly hate unless you understand love.

Bastard storyteller. If only he had made me a pure to the bone, soulless monster, one that only ran around lusting for blood and hunting to satisfy its next craving. Not me. I had to see the beauty of the white before I could truly be thrust deep into the black.

And this was where I belonged. Kara didn't deserve something like me, and the weaknesses that came with me. Weaknesses, or strengths, I didn't really care to know which.

After walking away from her, didn't take me long to remember my old instincts and powers. Since my purpose was born and met in that room of mist and mirror-like-waters, I could return to it by merely wishing it. For once, I was grateful, for I could fly far away from her and that bane-of-my-life Hero in the blink of an eye to the only haven I have ever known.

It smelt as I remembered it. Of water. Of ancient, wet stone. And that bitter-spice tang of magic.

I lifted up my eyes and took in the mists, the water, and the lone tree. It always appeared the same to me. I knew it was just an empty, stone room disguised by the illusion of the Water Temple's magic, but I still preferred not seeing the walls. It would make me feel like I was in a cage, which would have probably killed me.

I breathed in the mists.

Then started screaming every profanity I had ever known.

Somewhere along the line I started throwing things, satisfying myself with pretending I saw the Hero there as I had once seen him, set on his quest, and the sole object of my purpose. I threw my shield at him, every blade on my body, and then after swinging my sword till it slipped from my filmy hands I tore off my boots and started chucking them as well.

All the while, I couldn't face the pain.

_Why did he have to be so good?_

I remembered making him bleed. Our fight in this room had been long and glorious. The only other time I had felt so alive was with her, flying above the clouds.

_Why did I have to be the shadow?_

Of course she would choose him over me. Why had I ever thought differently? She had known him far longer than me, known him as the hero, watched him in all his damn nobility and god damn righteousness and being the soft light she was, of course she would have loved him! Hell, why had I ever thought to cater to such a whim as to think she could be with me? I had chosen it, of course I had chosen it, but had Miyamoto manipulated that too? He had orchestrated all the rest of my misery, so why the hell not?

I found myself on my knees, gasping for breath, staring down at my murky reflection in the water. The white mists framed my figure, making me appear all the more black.

No, I couldn't start thinking that way. My feelings were my own. My choices were my own. That was the law of all characters, no matter the story, otherwise there would be no purpose of life for anything. If we decided everything our creations did, our children did, there would be no life. Life was agency. That was the only truth I knew of in all this. If I started doubting that now, I really would go mad.

It wasn't until I saw my face starting to blur in my reflection that I noticed the tears on my face. Even though I was as alone as I could get, I felt humiliated.

"Aw hell, you've got to be joking. It's just a damn woman. Bawling like a baby isn't going to do anything." I wiped at my face so hard my gauntlet could've scraped the skin off my cheeks. "Damn, why do I always have to wear these? Couldn't I find a better change of clothes? Maybe I should just walk around naked from now on, that might shake things up a bit."

And, in a way, it'd be like sending Link around Hyrule butt-naked, since we had the exact same bodies, which would be a hoot. Maybe I could even figure out how to dye my hair blond. Din, this idea was sounding better by the minute.

Despite the fact my eyes wouldn't stop freaking leaking, I found myself laughing. It came out hoarse from all my yelling before, but it soothed the ache within me nonetheless.

"Aw, Din, marvelous."

I pushed myself to my feet and went about collecting my things. It was definitely an idea that I liked very much, but it wouldn't be accomplishing what I had set out to do. I would just be playing off of Link's identity, like I always had, and I didn't want that anymore. I wanted my own identity.

Boots fetched, various weaponry sat on the island to dry, I leaned against the dead tree (which was solid enough for being an illusion), and dug my fingers into the sand—something I often did whenever I wanted to think.

"All right then," I said to the silence. "I'm going to need a plan of action if I'm going to become someone. What do those mindless drones do anyways? Live in houses, I suppose. Got to have a home. Can't get a house unless I have a job—and now that I think on it, can't get new clothes without a job either. Or food." While in my sanctuary in the Water Temple, all my bodies needs were put on hold, as though time were stilled, and I had no need for food, sleep, or even a bathroom. Further testament that I wasn't made to be human. Outside, fortunately, was a different story.

"Okay, so a job." I nodded to myself, rubbing my face hard with my gauntlet again. Damn wussy, girly tears. It made my face hurt. "All right...job..."

How did you get those anyways?

Damn it.


	3. Marriage and Reality

**This story is mainly going to focus on Shadow, but as a sort of break throughout it I'll be dipping into Kara and how she's doing as well. And to you readers who wanted to find Shadow a chick so badly (you know who you are), he will be. ) Just wait, I got the whole story planned, you're going to love it!**

**And Shadow will love it too, so he can not hate me like he does Miyamoto. Because, if you think about it, through Kara I've become his storyteller...**

**Woa, trippy.**

**Kara**

I woke up with puffy eyes and with the goal to just not think about Shadow or his kiss for today. All it did was make me feel guilty when I really shouldn't, because I had made my choice, just as he had encouraged me to do. I was going to write my own story.

Besides, seeing Link bounce up to me like an eight-year-old to a cookie and with that cheesy grin on his face made any inkling of regret run to the hills before it was ever born.

I laughed after he hoped to a stop and kissed me soundly on the mouth.

"Good morning, most beautiful woman in the world!"

"Stop, you're going to make me pee!"

Link's face fell like a sun behind a cloud. "What's so funny?"

"Nothing, nothing. I'm just happy." We're totally acting like newly-weds. It was so sickening I had to laugh again. Good crap, I loved this.

My answer brought the huge smile back on his face though. "I'm glad that's the case! Would you like to get married?"

I choked mid-laugh.

"_What?_"

"Married!" he said, still smiling as though nothing were wrong. "I was thinking about it all last night! When I realized I didn't know your people's engagement traditions I figured I could just ask you straight up and then go from there. Or..." I think he must have misinterpreted the look on my face, for he said, "Is there something I need to do first? Do your men have to do anything specifically before they're allowed to ask? Because just name it, I'm ready."

I opened my mouth to respond, but I just kept staring at him. As the seconds ticked by, Link's beaming smile started to fall and he visibly began to wilt.

"Oh Din, I've really screwed it up, huh? Aw, Farore..."

The growing despair on his face snapped me back into action. "No! I'm just...surprised! Really really surprised. In my world people usually date for a while before even thinking about marriage."

He frowned. "Date? Like courting?"

"Yeah, and I'm just, wow, I mean, its only a day don't you think you should wait and make sure that you want to marry me? I mean, its like your selling your soul to someone."

"And there's no one else I'd rather sell my soul too." he said, grin wanting to return so bad that it made the corners of his mouth twitch. "Kara, I love you. I can't imagine myself with anybody else, and it's been more than a day, I've had a few weeks to think on it."

I wanted to smack my forehead, but I didn't think that would get the best message across. I'd probably end up making him feel more a fool than ever and he'd end up slinking off to mope in some corner. That was Link for you.

Crud, now I'm starting to think like Shadow. Except in my case, I thought it was cute how much of a boob the great, courageous Hero of Time was.

"But if it's too soon for you," Link said, breaking into my thoughts, "I'll be happy to wait. I don't want to make you uncomfortable. We can try this date thing if you want, just tell me what I'm suppose to do."

"What about you? Don't you guys have any courting thing?"

Link shrugged. "The Kokiri don't really get married, and in Hyrule when a guy and girl fall in love, they go and ask their parents if they can get married. But since any sort of parents I have are dead and since yours are sort of in another dimension..."

And apparently there was no time line on that. The childish logic in which he was using was astounding...and somewhat refreshing.

But still, marriage was permanent and sort of for the rest of your life. The idea of deciding something like that in just a day made me all sorts of panicked.

But as I stood there, listening to Link, my eyes trailed to my bedroom besides me. It wasn't exactly mine. It was on loan from Zelda, which also made me realize I couldn't exactly stay here for that long, especially since it would just be wrong and cruel on all different levels to be dating the guy she had been and still was madly in love with in her own home.

"Um, Link, getting away from the whole dating thing for a moment, um...got any idea where I could find a place to live? And where do you live anyways?"

To my surprise, he beamed. "I travel around and sometimes stay with the Kokiri, but that's exactly it! That's why I figured it wouldn't hurt to ask you to marry me! Then we could just find a little house someplace together."

I blanched. Well, at least it solved my housing problem.

"And, um, if we don't get married right away..." I said.

From the look he got, I knew he understood just as well as I that we couldn't keep going on like this in front of Zelda.

"We can always find work somewhere, though it would be really hard to find separate housing for us both. But we could manage it if you really need more time."

God _yes_, I need more time, but I kept my mouth shut.

"Uh..." Oh gosh, my stomach didn't feel too good. "Let me think on this, I'll get back with you."

"Okay!" he chirped, then he leaned down and stole another kiss. "Try not to stress out too much about it. Remember, I'm not your weakling father, and its different from your home here."

"People are still people, though." I muttered.

"Please don't worry. Just do whatever you think will make you happiest. If you're happy, I'm happy."

I screwed up my nose and pushed his face away from me with a grin. "Enough with the cheesy sap already! I can't take you seriously when you talk like that!"

He laughed.

After that he invited me to go on a walk through Castle Town, to which I did happily while telling him that was pretty much what a date was. This seemed to help him feel batter about his failings earlier and we had fun going through the stalls and eating pastries while people watching. Occasionally Link would point out a person and tell me their story, whether because they had told it to him or because he had just simply watched and listened. All the while, I kept trying not to remember the very inaccurate, much smaller pixilated version of it I had known back home, when this world was still just a video game to me.

"Link, what if we can't have kids?"

He looked over at me, the tips of his ears pinkening slightly. "You thinking that's because you're from a different world?"

"And Miyomoto makes the characters for this world, and there's no telling if people with their feet in two different dimensions can even exist. I mean, think about it, if we have kids will they just become a part of your world and under your storytellers power, or will they be a part of my world and have the same abilities I do?"

He frowned and folded his hands together. After chewing and swallowing a bite of his strawberry filled bun in his hand, he said, "I guess we'd just have to see. Besides, storytellers don't control everything in a story."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, take that kid over there," Link pointed to a little boy who was smearing mud all over his face and trying to convince a little girl next to him to do the same. "Did they do that in your game?"

"No...?"

"And do you know their names? Know their families? Their past? Their stories?"

"No, that's because they had nothing to do with the story's plot."

"Exactly, and yet they have all those. And from what I understand, you don't even know all about me. Just because you walked with me through my adventure with the Master Sword doesn't mean you heard my thoughts, felt my emotions, lived through all my childhood memories." Link smiled and took another bite of his doughnut. When he swallowed, he said, "I think there's a lot more to existence than we understand. Storytellers may give birth to a story, but what it does afterwords they don't have all that much say in. Very little, if you think about everything relatively."

"Huh." I wasn't sure if I completely understood, but I liked the sounds of it enough.

"Besides, now that my adventures with Ganon and Termina are over, maybe Miyamoto will stay out of my life for good. It's not like there's anything interesting anymore."

I snorted. "Yeah, it's not like he's going to be sitting in our bedroom, waiting for us to..." I stopped there. My face was getting awfully hot, and Link's looked quite red too. He stuffed the rest of his pastry in his mouth, as though he could distract himself from the thoughts in his head with the taste.

"My point is," Link said when his face had gone back to its original color and his mouth was clear, "while the whole storytelling powers can really throw your head for a loop on what the nature of reality is, it really doesn't change anything at all. Reality works just the same in my world as it does yours. People are born, live, grow, have adventures, tell stories, make stories, and die. And as Shadow says, we'll always have our choice, so even if someone is privy to some parts of our lives, we are still the ones who decide what direction the story takes, for better or for worse."

"Speaking of Shadow," I said, still watching the little boy in his mudpile, who had now gotten muddy handprints on the now indignant girl's skirts. "I'm surprised he hasn't gone mad."

"Are you sure he isn't? Where is he anyways?"

"He left last night." Please don't ask how I know that.

"Know why?"

"To find himself?"

"Makes sense to me."

And he stopped there. Prayer answered.

"By the way, have you any more thoughts on marrying me?" he said.

I suddenly wanted to face plant into the kids' pile of mud. Jeeze, I really needed to stop jinxing myself, or jumping out of the pan and into the fire, whatever they call it.

Blegh.


	4. Wings and White

**Okay, the first time I wrote this chapter was awful. This one is way better, though I'm not tooting my own horn or anything. **

**If you guys are bored in between updates, though, you can check out my stories on Wattpad. I'm still LoweFantasy, your one and only, and maybe you could share some stories with me! I've been looking around for some reading material. ^.^ **

**Anyhoo, let me know what you think! I'd love to hear it. I get some of my greatest stuff from you guys!**

**Oh, and to PurtyBabe-I so want to PM you! You sound like such an exciting person! Not sure what to think about making you scream when you saw this, though. You didn't scare the poop out of some poor innocent soul when you did, did you? Because it's not worth it unless you did...**

**Shadow**

As I had done before when I wanted directions (or to steal frog-eye soup), I went to the medicine geezer's hut. The ranch he directed me to sat smack dab center in Hyrule field and looked boring as hell. I didn't know what I was expecting, but seeing the drab, brown wood barn and matching house just gave me the urge to pull out my knife and start carving profane graffiti into the walls. Before I could fall into said temptation, I was met with the daughter of the ranch owner, Malon, who, by the time she had put me through tests like I was one of her horses, I decided I disliked more than felt nothing for. Her father, while the perfect epitome of a lazy ass, only got me to help around with his chickens, so I disliked him infinitesimally less. When they offered room and board as well as thirty rupees a week, however, I took the job. Manuel labor was something I didn't mind, and there was no guarantee I'd like anyone who had the unfortunance to call themselves my boss.

They gave me a musty smelling brown tunic and pants, which I happily donned. Anything to get rid of the black I wore. I cut my hair, even played with the idea of dying it, and took to daydreaming of different ways to change my appearance. I stuffed my weapons and chain mail beneath my bed, swathed in a bundle of my black cloak, and took a moment to solidify with myself that I was a clean slate—a new person—and free.

A week passed quickly, with uneasy nights filled with dreams of bright green eyes and thick, dark hair. I'd wake up reaching for her, then hating myself for being so pathetic. Kara was long gone now. I had no need for her anyways. I had a life of my own to create, which I felt myself doing with every heave of crates and lessons in horse handling from the ginger girl. I learned quickly, and that pleased both of us, because the more time I had on my own, the better. Malon and her fool father Talon were too friendly for my comfort. I was here to work, not socialize.

And it only took that first week for the two of them to figure out and fall into a routine with me. We, meaning Malon and I, would haul hay, scoop manure, round up horses, pull thorns out of the hooves of cows and horses alike, and maintain the property as her father screwed around with his stupid cucco.

"They do lay the best eggs in the kingdom," Malon had said to me offhandedly once, with our arms full of scratchy grass.

I couldn't remember what had brought it on. It wasn't till later, when I laid in my bed fighting to not think about Kara, that I realized I had thought out loud without meaning too. I never even stopped to wonder if I had offended her. Her father really was a lazy ass.

Monday morning, bright and early, I came out ready to haul whatever cow shit she had in store for me to find the girl struggling to haul out a cart. I sighed and went over to help. I could have pulled the thing out by myself, and she seemed to get that without me telling her so, and left. They had hired me because of my strength. At least that's one thing I could thank the Hero for. A warrior's physic without really trying.

I had just put down the yoke when she came around with a tall, heavy hoofed horse.

"You're a swordsman, right?"

I nodded. There should be some old oatmeal somewhere in the house. If I put enough sugar in it I could forget about the mushy texture.

"Good. It's delivery day, and I could use some protection. Once you help me load up, fetch your sword or whatever it is you need to do your thing."

"Do you care too much if I happen to kill anyone in said 'defending'?"

She gave me an odd look. Probably because I had said it as though asking if I should wear blue or green.

I didn't really care. My mind was on oatmeal. Or on clouds. And wings.

I shook myself.

"Okay, maim, not kill, got it. Just thought it safe to ask." I said.

She gave me one last pointed, odd look, then pulled the horse into the sides of the wagon's yoke. After helping her belt and hook in the stallion, who I swear was giving me suspicious looks the entire time for Din knew why, I happily let myself fall into the motion of muscles. The crates, full of glass bottles of milk, I could heave on my own with the direction of Malon, but they still made my knees pop and my back protest. It may sound a little masochistic, but I loved the pain and the burn of pushing myself. It filled me up to my brain and made me focus at what was at hand, and not even images of a girl with beautiful bronze wings filling the sky could break through.

Once or twice I thought I heard Malon tell me to be careful, take it easy, whatever people say when they're concerned, but I could feel the memories of the grinning, Japanese man at the edge of my mind and ignored her. I'd be fine. It wasn't like my body was anything normal. It wasn't like it would be the end of the world if I got hurt.

With the last crate on, Malon tied down the load from all corners and sides as I stretched and massaged my smarting wrists and back. I swung my arms to loosen up my shoulders and cracked my neck.

"I'll go get my gear." I said.

She made a sound to let me know she heard. Upstairs, in the loft where my scratchy, just big enough bed and rickety dresser stood above the horse's pens, I pulled out that dark bundle once more and reached inside. I hesitated for a bit, hands hovering over the pewter mail and midnight cloth before I simply grabbed my sword and shield. My hands had calloused enough for a few swings, and that would be all I need to take care of anything that thought they needed to mug a cartload of milk.

She was already seated at the front and waiting for me. The morning sun had just peeked out over the walls of the ranch and the golden light set her hair on fire. I paused for a moment, just to be amazed at the depth of that hair, before climbing up in the seat besides her, quiet as ever, setting my sword and shield between my feet.

"Breakfast is in the bag," she said, tipping her chin to a small burlap bag between us.

"Hmm."

"You could say thanks."

"I worked for it, didn't I?"

"Ass."

I said nothing to this, because, well, I didn't really care what this freckled fire-headed girl thought of me.

I had only really cared what one person had ever thought of me.

Talon just got up in time to lock the gates behind us as we trundled out in a cacophony of creaking wood, squeaking axle, and the clip clop of the huge stallion's heavy hooves.

"You'd think you'd have the mind to oil the bearings on this thing. That squealing's going to drive you mad." I pulled out a late-season apple from the bag and took a bite form it. Apple juice squirted across my cheek and I wiped at it absentmindedly. The apple tasted good. I think.

"If it bugs you so much, you can do it when we get home." she said.

"Hmm."

"Ah, yes, your favorite word."

I swallowed and took another bite of the apple as I looked into the bag to see what else there was. I found another apple, which I handed to her, and she took it without comment. Only a week and I thought we had figured out each other pretty well, which was simply that we didn't want the other to bother figuring us out. She was my boss, I was her farmhand, and after only a few of my cold or blank stares she got the picture that I wasn't one to be friendly.

"Well, you may be an asshole," she said when I handed her a hunk of cheese. "But at least you're not a lecher like Indigo." She visible shuddered. "Din."

"I have no interest in women." I said.

"Is there a reason to that?"

"Not any reason I'd be willing to tell you."

"In that case, I'll make up a reason," she chewed for a moment in silence, reins held loosely in her freckled hand. "You were deathly in love with a young boy who died before you could tell him of your feelings."

"Huh." Not bad.

But she didn't stop there. "You never told him because you were afraid of the prejudice others would hold against you for loving outside of the natural way, and also because you feared the boy's rejection of you."

"I like it." I said. "Let's go for that."

Her head snapped over, startled. "Wait, is that true?"

I couldn't help it. I sneered at her, and the affect made her flinch back. I had been created evil after all.

"And what about you, Miss Ginger? Has your heart been mercilessly crushed yet?"

She flushed, which was very unbecoming to her with her red hair. She pursed her lips and turned away from me, and I could see her fingers clenching around the reins.

"Excuse me for asking."

"Excused."

We road in silence the rest of the way to Castle Town, which left me too much time to think and in a far worse mood than I had started.

Castle Town was as I had remembered it: full of mindless peasants, greedy merchants, and ugly children. When images of Kara twirling around in the green dress I had bought her flashed across my mind's eye, as though I saw her again in the corner of the market, I growled and was almost tempted to take the butt of my sword and smash my head in. Why wouldn't she just _leave_ already? What retarded sickness had Miyamoto instilled me with? Or was this stupid lovesickness? Ha. Some fine monster he made. A shadow who gets ill in the heart.

"Our first stop is at a restaurant, only one crate. I'll tell you where to unload it while I get payment."

I just grunted. She gave me her pursed lipped look, but left me to it when we pulled up into an ally way a block away from the square of the Temple of Time. I had just set the crate before the surprised eyes of the fat block in the doorway when a commotion behind us took our attention. I could hear cheering and the tweeting of flutes.

"What's going on?" Malon asked.

"A wedding, I think. The couple didn't have much family, so some kind souls had decided to keep them company. I heard it's a friend of the princess, though."

His words made me turn cold, and I knew, long before the happy couple came around the corner that it was something I really, really didn't want to see. I kept looking, though.

Damn me.

I hardly noticed Link besides her. Swathed in white and with wings the color of clouds lilting from her back, I had never seen anything so close to being an angel as her. Even from our dark little ally way I could see the light in her bright green eyes and the light in her face. Rice and white confetti rained about her like snow, adding to the otherworldly image she made.

Afraid I might brake to pieces at the pure beauty, the pure, unadulterated, unachievable beauty now fully out of my reach, I turned away with my hands trembling just to see the unnaturally pale face of my employer. It didn't suit her mass of freckles. She looked a bit faint.

"Goodness! Have you ever seen anything like that?" said the store owner, gawking at the beautiful parade of white and happiness. Children followed after the couple along with various townsfolk and soldiers.

Malon just kept getting paler.

"Hey, you all-"

She collapsed. I caught her out of reflex, hefting her up despite the numbness in my own limbs. My knees felt rather weak. At the store owners alarmed jabbering I thrust out my hand, asked for the money, then loaded up my fainted boss into the seat besides me, all the while not daring to take another look after the couple in the square.

So. That was it. Like, really it.

….Kara.


	5. Under the Windmill

**Okay, just as a forewarning, this chapter is pretty graphic, but it's the worst I will ever get. It's against my standards to ever write a sex scene, so you don't have to worry there. I mostly wrote it because I wanted to write an accurate newly-wed scene, because hardly anyone ever does. **

**Also, if you find mistakes, I'm sorry, I've done too much editing today on other stuff and its midnight and I really don't want to edit again. **

**Also, to that random guest reviewer (you know who you are), I have nothing against constructive criticism! And I'm sorry this story is too serious for you. You could always read my other more light-hearted ones, like Hero Issues with Spontaneous Puberty or whatever I called it. It's my humor fic. I'm just trying to be realistic, but it does get happier. Also, I didn't understand entirely what you're review meant, so I would've liked to been able to talk to you about. **

**To all my other readers: Please review? Pretty please?**

**Kara**

I couldn't believe I had done it. A part of me for reals couldn't believe it, because I hadn't just picked the red apple and gone on my merry way. Oh no, I didn't just head off on an adventure like some badly animated character from an RPG Dungeons and Dragons game.

I'd gotten married.

Like...MARRIED married. Like the kind where you sell your soul to someone and then you run away and do the naughty and have babies and-

Oh god. Sex. How did that escape my mind?

I guess something like that would be easy to forget, with all of the characters from a video game jumping around you and throwing rice and giving you presents. Link had managed to scrape up a little cart of sorts to hook on to Epona and had loaded it up in there. It was even more understandable that I had forgotten while looking at Zelda's pale, wan face as she congratulated us and handed us her jewel studded, opal laminated treasure chest the size of a shoe box, but the weight of a small fortune. In two weeks Zelda had not only lost her only child, but now the man she loved as well.

Great way to feel like a real winner on your wedding day, let me tell you that.

But I think, by far, the biggest brain washer had been Link. He had always been handsome, but I had never seen him with his hair brushed back into a ponytail, dressed in clean, fine white clothes I had only seen English royalty wear, and with his eyes aglow with something I couldn't see without my face catching on fire and my heart speeding up.

He had only known me for about a month, but I could see in the way he looked at me...he loved me. He really, really loved me.

It made me dizzy.

"Kara, are you okay?"

The first quiet I had had all that day was filled with the creak of the cart and Epona's hoof beats on the path. I had imagined white wings to go with my gown, mostly out of a whim and because I remembered how the stable boy had called me an angel I had wanted to, just once, have Link see me as an angel.

I pulled out my fingers from the trap of white wedding dress I had twisted them up in.

"I-I just soft of made a huge...we're really married, aren't we?"

"Yep." His smile, if possible, grew even brighter at that.

"Like, married married."

"Is there another kind of married?"

"No it's just..." I was feeling dizzy again. Taking a deep breath, I let it out in a low hiss. I was over reacting. This was a dream come true, a fairytale in itself! I had just married a guy I was crazy for and thought I could never ever, not in a million years, have a chance with, if not because he was so awesomely cool and I was so awesomely not, then because we were from different worlds! And not the cutesie figurative kind that are often used by Mr. Darcy talking down his love to Elizabeth Bennett.

My mind was spinning, both with overwhelming happiness and shock. Whatever happened to graduating school? Oh screw it, who needed math anyways? But I had wanted to become a storyteller—that thought made me laugh out loud.

"What's so funny?" Link asked.

"Well, I was just thinking how back home I had had all these dreams of becoming an author whose stories really affected people." I snorted. "A bit ironic now how I've become that literally without needing a degree or anything, though, that gets me thinking." I turned to him with a frown. "Now what?"

"What do you mean?"

"We're married, chippery ho yeah, but then what? What are we going to do with the rest of our lives?"

Link didn't look in the least troubled by this. In fact, he looked enthralled at the idea. Though everything seemed to enthrall him right now. "For starters, I got us a place to live in Kakariko for a great deal, comes with a job and everything, so I'll be able to keep food on the table. But, other than that, I guess we can do whatever we want. Explore, read—and Kara, there's so much I don't know about you yet, but now we have all the time in the world to get to know everything there is to know about each other! Isn't that great?"

I smiled. Yeah, it did sound great. And I guess that I didn't really have anything to worry about. We would just take it one day at a time. Food, home, family, maybe some friends. Maybe I could even start exploring the extent of my storytelling abilities on myself, or maybe I could just become some sort of village bard who wears weird coats and tells even weirder stories. I mean, come on, these people had never even heard of stories like Cinderella or SpongeBob Square Pants, it was going to be epic!

Finally starting to catch on to a bit of Link's silly euphoria, I hugged his arm hard and squeezed it.

"I like you." I said, cheeks hurting with my smile.

"I would hope so."

"I'm not even sure how you persuaded me to marry you, though."

"Me neither," he said, still grinning like a fool. "I just sort of stood there and looked cute, I guess."

No, the process had been a lot longer than that. I swear I had been tossing and turning in my bed for years, when really it had only been one night and most of one day. After I had given him my reluctant, 'yes,' (because really, why not?), Link had vanished, abandoning me to spend out my awkward days in a castle, just to come back five days later with not only a wedding set up and rearing to go but a house as well.

Talk about service.

Gal, that was horrible to think.

But, really, when I got down to it, marrying Link was just another choice of whether to start my own life here or find a way that may or may not exist back to my own world, where I would live out my days pining for this one anyways. Of course I missed my family, and I missed my sister with a pang that left me crying if I didn't push it away fast enough, but, I guess, there was still a part of me that said I would see them again one day. Call it me being stupid, optimistic, or call it intuition, the truth was I wouldn't really know where my path would take me if I didn't just jump to it.

Also, I really, really needed a place to live, and Link wasn't the only one who had staunch moral issues against shaking up with someone of the opposite gender, love, friendship, or not.

And, you know...

I really, really _did_ like him...

Like...a lot. So much, in fact, it kind of frightened me whenever he'd kiss me and those feelings would start threatening to swallow me whole and then make me do something I might regret.

In fact it scared me so much I was afraid I'd thrown myself into his arms without giving all my logical reasons any real power, because what about all the reasons I _shouldn't_ marry him?

At the end of the day, which flew past with long conversations about how our worlds compared and the pros and cons of each, we rolled into Kakariko to another tunnel of happy people throwing tiny green rupees and rice into the air. I swear I'd have a whole meal in my hair after all this.

We waved to them, letting them see the legendary newly-wed bliss, then headed our way through the village, up ramps, and finally to a section in the back of the town devoid of people.

"Should be there in just a minute." he said.

"I still can't believe this. Married. To you."

"Can't believe it either." Then he turned that gooshy smile on me. I felt my stomach squirm and I pushed his face away, which only made him laugh.

"Don't do that or I can't take you seriously!"

"I just wanted to see your face. Din, you're easy to tease."

Then he gave me the gooshy smile again. The kind you'd see bad actors pull when they were trying to pretend to be in love.

I pushed his laughing face back. "Keep your eyes on the road, dummy."

"How can I when I'm busy trying to picture you naked?"

That really got my face hot. No, forget my face, my whole body burst into a full on blush. I tried to say two things at once and just ended up gagging, which only made him laugh again.

"I thought Shadow was the perv!"

"Oh, Kara, is it really perversion any more if you're my wife? And besides, I'm still a man."

I shivered, and if possible, felt even hotter. This couldn't be real.

Link put a hand to his eyes in an attempt to calm down his laughter. "You're really red right now."

"Shut up!"

"Why? It's adorable!"  
"I said shut up!"

"But we're here!"

I perked up and looked around. No girl could not be excited about seeing her very own house for the first time. When all I saw was a big well, the backyard of another house, and the back of the shooting range store, I frowned.

"Uh, which one?" Please don't tell me we weren't living in a shooting range. He did say it came with a job.

"You're not even looking in the right direction." He tapped the side of my face and pointed behind where I had been looking. My eyes went there, then up, and up, and up...

"You bought a windmill." I said.

"Great, isn't it? It has plenty of room in it, but if that's not enough, we can build out around it on the plot of land it's on, which I can also use to do some farming. Also, the windmill's been needing a tender for a while so people will be coming to have their grains ground so we'll have a steady enough income. Oh, and," he reached into his fine wedding shirt and, with a crinkle of paper, pulled out what I soon found was some kind of deed when he passed it over to me, though why I could read the alien, scribbly Hylian script was beyond me. "I also got it for a really good price since I knew the owner's been too caught up in hating it since I, well, screwed it up, so you have plenty of money to furnish it however you like."

"Somehow the idea of having money is weirder than being married," I said faintly, my neck still craned back to look at the enormous paddles of the windmill.

"Well, go on, check it out. I'll handle the unloading."

But a little want for my old world popped up and I grabbed onto his shoulder before he could get out. He looked back at me in concern.

"What is it?"

"Could you, um," I looked down at my knees. Gal, why was this so embarrassing? "Could you carry me across the threshold? It's a tradition in my—my old world."

He didn't even pause. He just gave me his tender thing of a smile, said "of course," then walked to the other side of the cart, scooped me up into his arms bridal style, and carried me as though I was light as a child up the stairs and to the door. He barely even jostled me as he used the hand beneath my knees to open the door and walk me inside.

Inside it smelt of wheat and pine, and instantly I thought, if nothing else, I could fall in love with that. Through the windows I could make out the great wheel and stone grinders in the center, fed by the heavy cogs and gears that rose up into the darkness of the windmill. When Link didn't put me down, but stepped onto the wheel and across to a door in the wall, I started to get nervous.

"Uh, you can put me down now. The threshold is all that's really necessary."

"But I like this," he said lightly. "I had to be away from you for a week, just let me hold you for a bit while I show you the rest of your house."

"I can't believe you don't even sound out of breath. Aren't I heavy?"

"Not really."

For some reason, that fact just made me feel all hot again. I had been more than hyper-aware of how his arms had felt around me, firm, shapely, and yes, very strong.

This just couldn't be real.

The door revealed a humble kitchen, well stocked, open, and built around the focus of a woodbrick oven in the corner, with a door that lead outside to "the privy" as Link called it, and I started hoping it had plumping. Zelda's castle had remarkably had plumping, to my endless delight. Through another door to the side was the bedroom, which had already been furnished with a large bed and a pine wardrobe.

"Sorry I picked out the bed without you, I figured you wouldn't want to sleep on the hardwood floor for our first night."

The word 'first night,' whether he intended it to sound it or not, got me squirming completely out of his arms, sad hero face or not.

"I'm going to go get some stuff." I squeaked.

"Hey, Kara, you don't have to-"

But I was already through the kitchen and through the windmill, burning up like a hot summer's day.

What the hell had I just done?

A voice that sounded remarkably like my mother's tittered in my head as I strode back outside into the evening sun and practically ran to the cart.

_It's just sex, Kara, its not the end of the world._

But it was just so weird! Even as I pulled off a basket of fruit some older woman Link had helped out at some time or another had given us, I could feel the urge to both buckle my knees together and go back up in there and start stripping, just to see what would happen now that I could—now that it was legal, even maybe _required_ in all sense of the word.

And its not like I didn't have any idea of the pleasure it would bring, it was just...

Gal, what if there was something weird with me? What if he didn't like the way I looked? What if it hurt—because I heard from some that it does hurt, though I couldn't quite remember who had told me that. And how did you even go about it? Boy gets all hard, you jump on like a samuri-

"Gah!" I slapped my hands over my head. "No more thinking!"  
"Kara, are you all right?" Link had appeared over the railing before the front door, looking down at me in concern.

"I'm completely fine, please don't ask."

He lifted his hands up in defense. "Sorry!

He was very careful for the rest of the time we loaded in the stuff, though it soon became him loading things in and me making sure the cleaners Link had sent in ahead of time had done their job. It helped me to calm down a bit to sit in the middle of the kitchen and let it sink in that this was all mine. I had a home now. Best to sit down and let the good feels wash over.

Sooner than I wanted, however, night came on and all our wedding gifts had been piled neatly in a corner for sorting in the morning. Link had pulled out a few quilts from the pile and handed one to me before lighting a fire in the oven.

"You were really thorough with this place." I said. "I don't know how to thank you."

"What do you mean? Its what a man does."

"Well, yes, but you didn't have to."

He turned to frown at me, a poker in one hand, face half-lit by the fire. "Is this another of your experiences with spineless men in your world? Do you really expect me to be like that?"

"No! Nothing like that! And not all of them are spineless—look, I'm just trying to say thank you, just take it."

"Your very welcome then." he said, smiling softly. Then the smile curled into something that resembled Shadow's old smirks a bit too much. "Though, if you're really grateful...?"

I took off my wedding slipper and threw it at him, which just made him laugh.

"But really," And I watched as the real Link melted through, awkward, a bit pink in the face, eyes downcast. "I'm am...just kind of curious...look, Kara, I love you, and we're going to be together forever, so there isn't any rush, I want you to promise me that you won't rush anything. But, if you're comfortable..."

"You're being really vague." I said. Though I knew exactly what he was getting at, and I felt the same bit of curiosity (it's not like I had had a habit of hunting down what a naked man looked at), the sense of how awkward I should be feeling gave me a sense a pride that I should not acknowledge his want.

He seemed to give up then and shrugged it off while scratching the back of his head.

"You hungry? This fruit we got is suppose to be really rare and tasty, and I the bread we got doesn't look to bad at all."

Happy to fall into a more normal conversation, I joined him on the wood floor to eat slices of bread and a strange red fruit that tasted like strawberries and made my lips tingle. I loved strawberries, and the bursting sweetness seemed to go all the way down to my stomach, relaxing me like a cup of hot chocolate after a cold day.

"I really like this."  
"Mmhmm." he said, eyes half closed in pleasure, leaned back on one hand with the other holding a slice in his hand. He was looking the other way, towards the fire, contentment in every one of his lines.

I finished another fruit, listening to the crackle of the fire and watching the shadows it threw over the kitchen walls—my kitchen walls. But mostly I just watched them play across his face and his long ears. He was so different from me, handsome to the point of beautiful. Sunkissed skin, storm blue eyes, and a face that held a memory of his boyhood and yet had the ability to turn sharp as a wolf's scowl. I trailed down to the muscles of his arms that had been revealed when he had taken off his overcoat and left him in a sort of tank top undershirt, and I could feel the weird heat again weighing down deep into my stomach and bleeding out into my thighs.

This really, really couldn't be real.

"I don't get it."

I hadn't realized I had spoken out loud until Link asked me what I meant. Even as I spoke I couldn't help but notice how his lips had been stained red by the fruit.

"How could someone like you ever want to end up with someone like me?" Self-consciously, I pulled my legs in. "Back home boys didn't really give me attention, and if they did it was always the guys who I think were just desperate for a girl to go on a date with. I've never even had a boyfriend, really, and you could have had anyone, not to mention you absolutely hated me at first."

He winced. "Don't mention that, please. I was such an imbecile to ever think you weren't anything but a blessing."

I chuckled a bit at that. "There you go saying cheesy stuff again."

"No, I mean it. Kara, if anyone should be confused it should be me. How could anyone as beautiful, brave, kind, and intelligent as you ever want to end up with someone who treated them like unwanted trash when they needed a friend the most?"

I blinked up at him. A word that I really didn't know why it affected me so much making my ears ring. "Beautiful?"

He blinked back, but then tipped his head to the side, eyes softening, and that tender smile that couldn't even be called a smile, but something much gentler, gracing his mouth.

"Very beautiful."

Slowly, as though afraid to frighten me, he reached out a hand to run his fingertips lightly across my long dark hair. He watched my face, waiting for any sign to pull away, as his fingertips explored across my cheeks, my neck, my shoulders, and down to the tears in my wedding dress where I had grown wings. I involuntarily shivered and he pulled away.

"I love you, Kara James." he said, quietly as though afraid the words themselves might break. "If you ever start to doubt reality again or ever grow afraid that everything you've lived through is just a dream or even just a game, know that my love for you will always be real. No matter what. Even if, for whatever reason, it doesn't make sense to you."

I felt myself give a shaky smile. "Those are some mighty nice words. Are you sure you aren't just trying to get me to take my clothes off again?"

He dropped his head in exasperation. "Did you even heard a word I said?"

"Yes, I did. Every one." And because I felt I needed to do something, HAD to do something, I pushed myself away from him and forced myself to my feet. He watched me in confusion and maybe with a bit of worry that he had offended me, but when I untied the sash around my waist and slipped the gossamer sleeves down my shoulders, his eyes just went wide.

I could feel every bare inch of my skin flushing with something like embarrassment, but not quite.

I bit my lip and hugged my bare breasts, waiting.

"Look, I might not be as romantic as you, but I do love you too." I said, sounding more like an eight-year-old boy being forced to say sorry than a grown woman.

"No, no that works." he said faintly.

I took a closer look at him. He was still knelt on the floor, eyes wide, face slack, hands flat on his lap. I fidgeted awkwardly and started thinking of ways to scoop my dress back up and scuttle back to the bedroom.

"Um, are you okay? I don't look like a freak, do I?" Who was I talking about, I totally looked like a freak.

"Freak?" he said, still sounding like someone had hit him upside the head.

"Okay, yeah, I'm going to go find some clothes to sleep in now, I think I've shown enough love this evening."

"Wait!"

I paused half-way turned around, still clenching my knees together and hugging my chest and doing all I could to just stop thinking about what was going on.

"What?"

But he had stood up too, and before my eyes he started peeling off his clothes as well. My heart started doing this weird staccato rhythm in my chest and I could feel like something phenomenal was about to happen, especially when the tank top came off and I could see just how well defined his chest was and I could feel the need to touch him, to throw myself at him, growing. Something sort of started trilling in my ears, like something between a blood curling scream and a squeal of delight. Couldn't really tell. Terrified, curious, excited-

And then horrified when his pants came down.

"What is _that?_"

He glanced down. "What?"

Any sort of romantic, sensual, whatever it was that had been in the air snapped and I became fully aware that I was standing naked in a medieval kitchen with a guy I had just married equally naked in front of me.

And with something really disgusting between his legs.

"What?" Link asked again.

It was like a long, hairy, wrinkled hot dog, and yet somehow all worse, maybe because it was sticking up in the air as though to salute me.

I was suppose to...

I bolted.

"Kara!"

I slammed the door behind me, fumbling for the lock and doing everything I could not to pee. Lucky for me I had thought ahead of time to light a candle in the bedroom, but I almost wish I hadn't, because I suddenly didn't even want to see myself naked.

"Kara?"

But I jumped onto the bed, threw the covers over my head, and tried with all my might to remember how to breathe.

Nope. Link wasn't a freak. I was pretty sure of that.

I was also now pretty sure that all men were freaks, and that women were insane.


	6. Ginger Butch

**Totally didn't expect this chapter to turn out the way it did. I think these characters have a mind of their own. **

**Please review! Pretty please!**

**Shadow**

Ride back to the farm was awkward, to say the least. I had had to finish up the deliveries with a zombie ginger besides me mumbling directions of where to go. I'm sure I frightened away at least a third of Lon Lon's customers trying to grin in a friendly manner at them. Most had just taken their milk and ran, but a few had the decency to see that I was trying.

The awkward part about heading back home was that she was still zombified. It was getting on my last nerve.

"I guess I can understand why you liked that asshole." I said in an attempts to resurrect her. I so wasn't going to do her share of the chores tomorrow.

Nothing. She just stared forward. She hadn't even eaten the sandwiches she had packed for the both of us. Well, I hadn't felt much like eating either, but I did anyways in a sort of defiance against my own emotions. No way and in hell was I going to get all sob story over some chick.

Excusing the fact she was the only one of her kind in all of Hyrule, maybe in all of existence. How many girls did you know that had an offer of godhood? And not only that, but denied it?

Thinking about it brought back memories of the last time I saw Miyamoto, which didn't improve my mood. He had told me to persuade her to take his side, that he would give me a place in the past on some island called Skyloft that he would commission her to create as the goddess Hylia. Course I ignored him, though he probably knew that. Or did he know that I knew that and thought I would try to predict what he was trying to make me do and do exactly what he told me to do?

Hell no was I going down that road. That last thought didn't even make sense.

When we arrived back at the ranch I helped Malon brush down the buff horse that had taken the cart and turned it in for the night before getting to the other horses, or my bunkmates, as I should call them. Strange thing was, I didn't mind the smell of horse as much as I thought I would. And since Malon was crazy about them, she had extremely high standards for the cleanliness of the stable. Seeing as my bed was right above said stable, where horses would pee and poop all night, I was more than happy to help.

After settling in one horse and heading out for another, I asked, "What's for dinner?" Not that I felt hungry, but I knew I should eat.

She gave me a look like a kid asked to find a hundred rupees they weren't suppose to lose.

"Din, I forgot to buy the ingredients! Ugh!"

When she started to tear at her long ginger braid, I waved my hands like an idiot to get her to stop.

"Woa, calm down, it's cool. I'm not that hungry anyways."

"But Dad-"

"Is a grown man who should be able to fend for himself."

She shook her head in dismay. "Its not that I'm worried about him not eating, its that I'm worried about what he'll do to the kitchen."

"Come on, it can't be that bad. And you can always boss me around like you usually do into helping you clean up."

Somehow the urge to put me back into my ignorant place was enough to break her out of her zombie state to glare at me.

"If that's the case, how about I just save myself the effort and make you cook?" But then she stopped and started looking at me as though she had never really seen me before. I had a bad feeling of what was coming and instantly tried threatening her with my lack of talent in the cooking department.

"-unless you have a hunk of raw meat, then hand it over, I'll grill it to perfection, but seeing as the only meat you have on your farm has yet to die-"

"I never noticed before." she broke in, her voice trembling just slightly. "I mean, there had been something about your face from the beginning, but I could never pinpoint it."

I took a step back, getting desperate. "I guess I'll go to killing one of your cows now."

But not even that distracted her. She followed me, blue eyes wide like coins and starting to shine with tears.

"Your face is just like his. No, exactly like his."

A familiar acidic, sticky hot hate boiled down my chest and into my gut. I heard my knuckles pop as I clenched my fists, suddenly overwhelmed with a desire to maim something. After a whole week of being free of such urges, I had forgotten just how powerful they could be.

The fiery ginger recoiled back from me, having the brains to actually act afraid, for once. I had given her plenty of my glares before to her slave driving, but she had never brought up Link or my face before.

My fists started to hurt.

"Shadow?"

"Don't ever, _ever_, compare me to him or I really will kill all your stupid animals."

A flash of the old fire came back to her eyes and she straightened up to gain the ground she had lost.

"Screw you! I should fire you for even saying such a thing! And shouldn't I be the one who's pissed off at you having Link's face?"

"It's not _his_ face, it's mine!"

"Like hell, you might have black hair, but I know his face anywhere!"

"Oh ho, I bet you do, probably dream about it every night, don't you?"

She flushed, and it wasn't becoming to both her freckles nor her orange-red hair. It just gave the impression that her whole head had caught on fire.

"Like you have room to talk! I saw your face when you saw him today—what, were you in love with him or something?"

I snapped. Now, pardon to anyone who thought I had a lovable personality, but I had been created a villain after all, and I thought pretty well of myself to have made it as long as I did without punching her.

I was even more proud of myself when I only stood above her and panted rather than laying it out. Her nose was bleeding, and she seemed just as surprised as I did at my actions. Eyes watering, she felt out her face and held out her blood tipped fingers.

I started, suddenly realizing, with a tinge of horror, of what I had done. Screw punching a girl, I was going to loose my job! "Look, I'm-"

But I couldn't finish whatever clever thing I was about to say, for her fist contacted with my mouth. In a flurry of red hair and pink skirts (pink is a horrible color for a girl with red hair, by the way), she full-on body tackled me and started punching my face like a savage. If I hadn't been so shocked I could have probably stopped her, and no, the stars bursting in my vision from her fists in my right eye had nothing to do with it.

"When I'm through with you, bastard," I heard—somehow, "you'll have a nice new face to thank me fo-"

I flipped on her, furious. Like hell I was about to be beaten by some stinking farm girl!

We cussed up a storm, slapping and punching and pushing until we were chasing each other across the courtyard to the fields screaming like the angry, heartbroken maniacs we were.

Sometime after dark we burnt out and collapsed against each other somewhere out in the grass, watched by very confused and alarmed horses. I could feel her back heaving against mine as we fought for breath and I could taste blood in my mouth.

"You fucking punched a girl." she wheezed.

"Like hell I'd love that asshole."

"What he ever do to you? Besides look like you?"

"Like you care."

"It's that girl he was marrying, wasn't it?"

I jerked my arm to hit her again, but it just sort of flopped like a fish at my side. She gave a breathy laugh, hitting the back of her head into mine in the process, but I was too beat to care.

"Aw, that must suck."

"Shut up." I growled.

"You shut up."

We sat there sweating together until we caught our breath and starting swearing at each other for our various boo-boos.

"What are you, some sort of savage?" I asked. Because, honestly, I hadn't been beaten this bad since Link. Since when did a farm girl have the same fighting skill as the Hero of Time?

"Look who's talking." she said.

I grunted, gingerly feeling out the swelling above my right eye. That'd be a nice shiner in the morning. Hopefully, she looked worse, or just as bad, though that didn't necessarily make me feel good.

She leaned away from my back, and the loss of warmth made me shiver.

Goddesses, I really had sunk low, hadn't I? So what if I didn't skip meals and sob like a moron, beating up a girl wasn't any better way to avoid being some angsty dweeb.

"I'm sorry." I muttered.

She didn't say anything. For a moment, I thought that was my answer. I had just been a royal dickweed, after all.

"I'm sorry too."

Her voice matched mine for softness. For a moment we just sat there, shivering in the night air, watching the horses, bleeding a bit on the grass, and not really wanting to try and get up.

Then, at some point, I heard her give a sniff through her swollen nose. I turned a bit to see her slumped over her knees, eyes to the starry sky, and tears trickling down her scraped cheek. The tear glistened in the starlight, and for a moment I was caught off guard. Curse the closet poet inside of me who had to find beauty in something so inane.

When she caught my gaze, she quickly looked away and gave a shaky, really pathetic sort of smile to the sky. "He said he'd come back for me, you know. Said we were friends."

"That's stupid." I said.

"Yeah. Real stupid. And get this, I had even thought of him as some sort of princely knight that would come and sweep me off my feet." She gave a gurgly laugh that was more of a sob than anything else. "Like any guy would want to woo a butch tomboy like me."

I turned away, feeling a rock in my throat. I swallowed, feeling a bit panicked at its very existence, but seeing the girl I had just brawled with crying there like, well, a girl, just sort of wheedled into me like a thorn—or a disease.

"She had been my only friend." I mumbled, half-hoping she wouldn't hear. "But I was stupid too. No girl would ever want to end up with someone as awful and evil as me."

She sniffed. "Yeah. You're a real asshole."

"And you fight like the strongest man I know, oh lady. Just how many times a week do you have to shave off your mustache?"

"Probably about as many times as people who want to talk to you. Honestly, did you have to grimace at every one of my customers? If they cancel on us I'm taking it out of your paycheck."

I blanched. So maybe she hadn't been as zombified as I thought.

Tears still pouring down her face, she stood up, pointlessly brushed off her pink skirt, and held a hand out to me. I stared at it, wondering what the hell it was for. I obviously didn't need some chicks help to stand.

"Since an asshole like you won't be able to find a job where he can beat up his boss, I think we can dock a week of your pay and call it a truce. Unless little heartbroken Shadow wants to go after a married woman."

I blinked up at her, at her swollen lips forced into a smile. I couldn't believe it. I just couldn't believe this woman. I thought only men could build friendships after beating the crap out of each other.

She really was a butch.

But, I returned her smile, took her hand and stood.

"I've got an idea you'll love if you're willing to compromise on that week." I said.

"I doubt it." She lifted the back of her hand to her mouth with a wince. "My nose hurts like hell."

"Well then, let's just consider this a teaser," I leaned in, smirking despite the pain in my split lip. "My face isn't the only thing that looks like Link's."

At her horrified look I roared with laughter. "Aw damn, that's not what I meant."

She scowled, which looked quite vicious with a swollen, bloody nose. "What else could I get from that?"

"I meant we could get revenge on him. It's an idea I've been thinking about for a while, since I love him oh so very much. Do you know how to dye hair? I could go blond then run around the kingdom pretending to be him, except butt naked."

She only took a second before throwing her head back and hooting with laughter, not much like I did. When she brought her face back to me I felt a brief tingle of pleasure at the equally evil grin on her face.

"That's so awesome." she said.

"Shall I?"

"Nah, I want something I could watch, and seeing your naked hide would just scar me. I think this calls for some thought over food, you up for it?"

"Flying."

And like that, somehow, Malon of Lon Lon Ranch weaseled into my lonely world where only Link and Kara had before existed.


	7. Taking Slow and Doubt

**Please review! Oh, and please excuse my little mistakes too. And just between you and me, I shouldn't have written this chapter, because I have work to do that I'm putting off to do it. . Bad Lowe Fantasy. Bad. **

**Kara**

I didn't come out until the next morning, fully dressed in a dress, petticoats included, and with a blanket draped over my shoulders. Link was already awake and at the fireplace, and when he looked around I barely kept in a squeak.

"Kara," he said, "Um...I made breakfast! I, uh, have to go somewhere to get some stuff to ready up the windmill for grinding. Later, that is. Not right now. Though if you want me out right now I guess I can go out right now."

I felt even worse about the night before now that I could see how cowed Link had become. It was as though he were afraid that by simply being naked in front of me he had done irreparable damage to his marriage.

When I made my way over to him, I noticed how he wouldn't look up at me. I sat with him on the rug on our bare floor and accepted the plate he handed to me.

"Link," I hesitated, looking for the right words. "I'm really sorry about last night, about calling you a freak like that."

He said nothing. Maybe because his mouth was full of sausage. But he also still wouldn't look at me.

"You didn't do anything wrong at all, and I don't really know much about this whole marriage thing or what I'm suppose to even do as a wife. I guess you don't know much about it either, huh?"

After a moment, he swallowed and poked at another sausage on his plate. "Kara, can I confess to you about...something? I'm not mad at you at all, I promise."

"Sure." I spread a piece of bacon to nibble on.

He glanced at me, almost feverishly, then went back to pushing the sausage around his plate with his fork. His ears had started to turn red.

"I...I wasn't completely at fault. I'm not as good as you think I am, and I can't...when I saw you like that, Kara, I don't know what came over me. I wanted you so bad, I wanted to—to do things to you, throw you against the bed, even. Stuff like that." his ears flushed dark red. "Is that even how it's suppose to be done? What if I hurt you? Aw, Din," he dropped his plate to the side and flung his arms over his maroon.

My face was plenty hot as well, and so was the rest of me.

"Link?"

"What are we doing, Kara? I don't want to—but I do, and...what if something's wrong with me?"

I couldn't help but smile, even if it did feel a little awkward, and I dared to pat him on the back. "There's nothing wrong with you, and it's okay if we take some time. We did sort of gallop into this thing."

"Do you think it would have been easier if we did more of your dating thing first?"

"I'd say more like if we did more making out first." I ducked my head down so he could see my devilish grin when he peeked up, which seemed to do something in lightening his mood. "But really, don't worry. We'll take it slow, little steps, and whatever happens happens. And I may have never done it before or anything like that, but from what I hear, wanting to throw a girl against a bed and, well, whatever you wanted to do, is totally natural."

He looked at me with a strange mixture of relief and disgust. "Is that really what sex is like?"

"They do describe it as ravaging for a reason." I said wryly. "But are we good now?"

He blinked up at me beneath his arm, then lowered it, reflecting my smile into the soft tender thing I remembered. I met his eyes straight on, searching his gaze with my own, as though that could somehow solidify that strange change in circumstances I had found myself in.

Slowly, carefully, he lifted up a hand to my neck and pulled me to him for a sweet, gentle kiss. Despite the chastity in the touch, I felt little sparks go off in my stomach, and I eagerly returned it. With my eyes closed and just the feel of him touching me, lips upon lips, fingers on the back of my neck, it was easier to believe this wasn't all just some screwed up dream.

He didn't pull away until he had kissed both my eyes as well.

"You're completely right, wife. We're in this together. There's no rush, though I don't think I'll be able to hold myself back if I see you naked again, so...yeah, just keep your clothes on until we reach that point, okay?"

I laughed, patting the bare hand that still wrapped around the back of my neck.

"Aw man,"

"What?"

I grinned at him, feeling the warmth, home like feeling nearly filling me to bursting at the sight of him. Link. My Link.

"I love you," I said.

A light blush returned to his recently cooled cheeks.

"Well gosh, I hope so." he said, sitting back to his breakfast.

"Can I make a confession too?"

"It's certainly make me feel better if you did."

"I kind of think we're crazy."

He laughed at that, head thrown back, stomach bouncing, the whole nine yards. The sound warmed me to the core and I thought that I couldn't be alive, for there could be no way possible that I'd have such a happy chance as to hear that laugh for the rest of my life.

"So, windmill stuff. Then what?" I crunched another strip of bacon in my mouth whole.

"We could use some furniture." He gave a pointed look to how we were seated on the floor.

I nodded and swallowed my bacon. "All right, I guess I can play housewife. Got any money for you?"

"As much as you want."

It was weird how much that pleased me. Not because it was money and, well, who doesn't get fuzzy when they get money, but because Link, my husband, was providing me as much as I want. It was such a weird feeling, like getting money from him was one of the most natural things in the world.

Aw gal, I had it bad.

"We really are crazy." I muttered.

"I guess I don't mind it then." he said.

After that we talked about furniture preferences and what all I'd need to get and how'd I get it. I told him a bit about the differences between our kitchen and the one I had at home, but ended up stopping at both his befuddled look and a vague sense of apprehension. By marrying him I had come to terms with the fact I would never go home, after all, and thinking anything related to the world I had come to was dangerous indeed. But Link caught on to my mood instantly and changed the subject to other things, like if I'd like to travel in the future and all the fun things we could try out in our new life without monsters and killer storyteller's on our tails.

The morning passed quite happily like that, keeping its dreamlike quality all the way up to the point where Link dropped a leather pouch of rupees into my hands, kissed me soundly, and left to get the necessary parts to get the mill up and going. I had just closed the door and getting ready to run my fingers through sparkling rupees (currency here was so much prettier than back home), when someone knocked. Wondering why they hadn't just stopped Link on his way and what they could need from me, I tied the pouch closed, hid it behind me, and opened the door.

To meet with a nightmare.

The Happy Mask Salesman, with his overflowing pack of masks upon his back and a familiar Cheshire cat grin on his face, bowed to me with a clack of wooden masks.

"It's good to see you are settling in to the role you have made for yourself quite well. You have made Link a very happy man."

"Why are you here?" My voice didn't sound as calm as I had meant it to be.

"Can't I just check in a fellow storyteller and say hi?"

I closed the door in his face, only to turn around and find him right behind me, smirking that god-awful smirk and perched on the giant wooden wheel that made up the floor of the windmill.

"That isn't very polite." he said. "I have, after all, allowed you to do as you wish with my main hero."

I clenched my suddenly clammy fists and lowered my gaze on him, trying to keep my face like stone. I had nothing to say to him, and figured the sooner he got done with whatever reason he was here, the better.

When it became apparent I wouldn't say anything, he gave an exaggerated sigh, the smile never moving once from his face.

"Oh dear, I fear we have some mistrust issues here. I can assure you, Kara James or whatever your last name is now, that I have never had any malicious intent."

"You don't have any good intent either." I said.

"Ah, I suppose so, but then I am just the force of the story, an echo of the Miyamoto in your world, and shadow of his desires. My sole purpose is to ensure that the story remains intact as I have dictated, or my true self as so dictated, and without my presence this story would not live, so I'd rather not have these harsh feelings between us."

"Then stay out of our life and leave it at that."

He bowed again, though didn't look in the least bit apologetic. "And I plan to. I only wish to leave you with a warning."

"Go on, then, warn away."

He straightened, his narrow eyes somehow managing to gleam. "There is a reason that beings never leave their dimension, or their story, Kara James. A very good reason, don't you think?"

"I don't think anything, as I don't have a clue what you mean."

"Well, tell me this," he lowered his head a bit, as though in an attempt to lighten the blow of whatever he was about to say. "What will you think when you have children? What if something bad happens to them? What if they come out strange and confused, with no storyteller at all?"

"Then they'll be their own storytellers."

"Ah, but you're in my world, Kara. You are far too aware of its gods, but my fingers are in far less than you think, but you will always be wondering where my fingers are. You will always wonder just what I'm controlling, what I'm manipulating, and when you have children, if you do, you will be driven mad knowing their fates could be manipulated into just being another part of some big, best seller video game. That their lives are simply being made for entertainment, that _your _life is being moved as someone else's entertainment. Just think of how you might look pixilated."

Something dark had started yawning somewhere in the pit of my gut. I had started shaking with huge, painful tremors that knocked my knees together and made my hands grow cold.

"That isn't going to happen," I said lowly. "I know all the sequel games to the Ocarina of Time. There's no way any future games will need anything from this one to be made."

But his Cheshire grin just grew, making the air in my lungs feel sticky.

"But it's the thought, dear girl," he tapped the side of his head. "It's the thoughts I warn you of. The anxiety that will grip you. The apprehension might drive you out of your mind. The not knowing, and the knowing too much. Kara James, I hope you have made the right choice in accepting where your storyteller has placed you."

And with that, he bid me farewell, and walked out the front door like we had just had a pleasant talk over tea.


	8. Rage in a Small World

**Not sure what to think of this chapter. Please review. **

**Shadow**

The thought occurred to me while I was slaving away mucking out the stalls with Malon the next morning, right after being told off by her spineless, lazy father for getting into a fight while delivering milk. We had to have some reason to explain our black eyes, bloodied noses and knuckles and bruises, but I still couldn't believe he had swallowed it. It was this that got me wondering how many times Malon had told him such crap, because it didn't seem like a new ritual between the two. He was displeased, for sure, but hardly alarmed.

Which got me thinking: where in the hell had Malon learned to fight like that? And besides that, why had she felt the need to learn? It wasn't like the fat Talon had taught her, though you never knew.

"Hey, boss,"

"Yeah?"

I leaned back and rested my hands on the rake, brushing back my sweaty bangs for the uptenth time. Din, my hair grew fast. "Where'd you get your butchy strength?"

"I've ran a ranch practically by myself most of my life, dummy, where do you think?"

Oh. Well, at least that part made sense. "But why'd you learn to fight? A dinky ranch like this doesn't get raided, does it?"

I got a face full of manure speckled straw for that. None got in my mouth, though, so I wiped it off in good enough humor. It wasn't like I hadn't expected that.

"Call my ranch dinky again and it will be a whole cow pie."

"Sure, but you haven't answered my question."

"I learned to fight from some grungy street punk in castle town, okay? He had a crush on me or something."

"Well, that's...convenient."

I waited, but she just kept scraping away. When she spoted me still standing there all plum-chill with my rake not dug into a pile of crap, she scowled.

"I don't pay you to loaf around."

"You haven't answer my question yet."

"I thought I just had."

"Half of it, yeah, but not why you learned to fight. I know you don't get raids here, and if you did, the guards at castle town would get you help pretty quick. It's not like they have anything else to look at on the field other than this place."

"Doesn't mean we don't get raids."

"And your dad left you to defend the place by yourself?" Even I could hear my own deep disbelief. The guy was lazy and good for nothing, sure, but he wasn't _that_ much of a loser. He loved his daughter more than anything, that was for sure, and though he wouldn't be much I knew he would fight tooth and nail to protect her.

But it was still reassuring when Malon acted insulted. "Of course not. He'd fight too, and Indigo was here too."

"Ah yes, the infamous Indigo. I hear a lot about this guy."

She started mumbling a string of familiar insults and I grinned. "I hear that a lot when he's mentioned too." Then my smile slid off as a thought hit me like a whole glob of runny, messy horse shit. She had mentioned that she didn't mind me being a jerk, because at least I wasn't a pervert like Indigo, and it wasn't like there were any other women on the ranch to prove his pervertedness.

Malon seemed to be sensing my train of thought, for she gave me one of her what I called 'boss glares' which said, 'you get your ass back to work or I'll fry it while you sleep, and I dropped back into raking those stalls out like a good little farm slave.

The cold, horse-shit feeling didn't leave from my gut, though.

I didn't mention it again until the work was finished for the day and Malon and I sat down beneath one of the ranch's huge pecan trees with a deck of cards, jugs of cold lemonade, and slices of chilled pumpernickel bread. This sort of thing was starting to become a tradition for us, and I didn't even have to ask what game we were playing when Malon shuffled the cards and started dealing it out. I watched her movements more closely this time, though, trying to see some sort of hint that my theory may or may not be true. Her arms moved as they always did, and I couldn't read any sort of stiffness to them. She stopped half way through the deck to take a swig of her lemonade. I watched a drip of condensation drip down her chin and neck before I realized what I was doing and shook myself.

She must have noticed me flicking my head, for she lowered her lemonade and gave me a raised, questioning eyebrow.

"Fly." I grunted.

She went back to dealing.

Half way through the game, with me a good few points ahead of her (for once), I was getting really sick and tired of feeling like horse-shit just because of an idea that may very well not even be true. So, making sure I'd appear as casual as possible, I laid down my next cards and popped the question.

"So, Indigo..." Aw Din, this shouldn't be that hard. I'd stabbed men in the guts before and knew all about the dirty, why'd the horse-shit feeling get worse?

"What about him?" She picked out two cards and then reached for her drink.

"Did he rape you?"

She choked on lemonade, nearly dropping her hand in the process. I waited while she coughed and pretended not to see the seven and nine at her feet.

"Don't go asking questions like that when someone's drinking! Could've killed me!"

"Nah, the mighty ginger of Lon Lon won't be downed by something as lemonade, but I gotta know, it's bugging me."

"Like hell I'll answer to anything like that just because it's bugging you! Do you mind? Course not, pardon me, this is asshole D. we're talking about." She picked up her seven and nine and slapped down some other cards, which at a glance I could see would be my undoing. Dang.

"And asshole D. needs to know."

"No, he doesn't."

"I'm taking it that he did, then? You're not denying it." And even as I said that the horse-shit feeling was morphing into something uglier. The day seemed to grow darker for me, despite the afternoon sun blazing bright in the sky.

Malon didn't answer right away, but kept her head bowed to her cards as though seeing something very interesting in their numbers. Then, flicking her red braid behind her, she said, "What of it?"

A strange feeling like burning and freezing at the same time filled me to the brim, and it took me a moment to realize I was angry-no, enraged, but so deep and in a shape I didn't know it could take that I hadn't recognized it at first. I didn't move, as shocked by my own passion as I was by her answer.

"Are you going to make your move or what?" she said, without looking up, but cards were the last thing on my mind.

I couldn't move. I was burning. "Malon. Look at me."

"What kind of stupid request is that?"

"Just do it."

She sighed, put her cards on the grass, and looked up at me through a few strands of her red-orange hair.

I could see what I had been looking for, then. What I had been looking for in her movements, in the way she talked, the way she moved. I hadn't known it then, but I knew it now, and I could see it when she looked me in the eye.

I lost it.

My cards went flying, and without knowing how I had got there I was half way to the farm house, vision red, teeth clenched so hard my jaw popped. The only thing I had in mind was the dark-silver sword beneath my bed and shaking Indigo's address out of the lazy, useless glob of guts who dared to let that happen to his daughter.

"Shadow! Shadow, stop right there, what are you doing?"

I didn't answer her, I couldn't, because if I opened my mouth only a roar would come out.

But then her voice took on a shrill quality I hadn't heard from her before and couldn't ignore.

"_Please don't tell him!_"

I stopped in front of the farm house door, where I knew her father would be inside, messing around with his stupid birds. It took everything in me to refrain from kicking in the door.

I could hear her panting behind me in shakey, uneven breaths. Malon had the endurance of a mule. A short sprint like that would not make her breathless.

"I'm begging of you." she said.

"Then tell me where he is." It came out as a growl in my attempt to restrain myself.

"Why do you think I'd make the effort to know his address?"

"Excuse me." I grasped the doorknob.

And she was on my back, clutching to my tunic, ready to yank me back. I knew she could. I knew the moment I opened the door she'd fling me onto my back.

Somehow, that made me, if possible, angrier, and I turned on her.

"_Why the hell do you protect him?! He let that happen to you?!_"

"No he didn't, and you know that! I don't even know why you're acting like this, it's ridiculous."

"Ridiculous?" The word just didn't match. How was any of this ridiculous?

"Yes! It happened years ago and he's gone now, okay? I'm doing just fine as it is, like it never happened."

Now this broke through my fury, dimming it down to a controllable simmer, because that was almost funny. Like she was living as though rape had never happened to her.

"It's made you, Malon. Don't lie to yourself. It won't get you anywhere. Trust me, I know." I had done plenty of that myself in the beginning.

The door opened behind me and I heard Talon speak, sounding drowsy and confused.

"What's all the shout'n about?"

"Nothing, Daddy." said Malon, and the fake sweetness in her voice nearly made me physically ill. I brushed past her, careful not to look back in case seeing Talon made me snap completely.

"You two fighting again?"

"No, we were just-"

I blocked out whatever stupid lie she had to tell her dad this time and closed the barn door behind me. It wasn't till I had dropped onto my bed and ran my hands through my sweat-crusty hair that I started wondering at the strange passion I had felt and what in the world had caused it.

Because Malon had had a point. My reaction had been, in a word, a bit ridiculous. Over the top, even. Girls got raped every day, and Indigo was long gone from the farm. Not only that, but Malon had come out intact, at least, as far as I could tell.

But no, I couldn't start there. The damage inflicted on us from others doesn't just melt away when we try to ignore it. In fact, the more we ignore it, the more it festers until it's a throbbing canker in our souls, feeding our subconscious fears and insecurities. You didn't just 'move on.' You didn't just 'pretend it never happened.' You face it, in all its horrible ugliness, and figure out what to do with it. Do you stay the monster someone else made you into out of their own selfishness, or did you rise above it? Do something else? Become someone else? Someone they wouldn't even recognize?

I tugged on my hair and reached for a knife. Even now my body fought to keep up with its mirror image, down to the tips of my hair.

I cut a bit to eagerly and felt a sharp pain in the side of my hand. I ignored it until the sweaty bangs had gone to the floor, leaving the sticky sensation of blood in my hair.

No. I hadn't overreacted.

But I had for a reason. Malon was part of my world now, a small, private place, so naturally my pathetic, lonely soul had latched onto her. I had already lost the only other inhabitants, technically, and so the very thought of anyone harming her, raping her, even-

I tied a rag in a rough bandage around my hand and continued slashing at my black hair, relishing in the minuscule pop that came with each severed strand.

That man would rue the day he did that to her. I had been born a monster after all.


	9. No Turning Back

**Got the riskiest I would ever get here. Still unsure of myself. But, just forewarning you ahead of time, though by now I think most of you would know me well enough to know what to expect. **

**Please review! I don't know when I'll be able to update next. I got a ton of work ahead of me. X.X Got a romance novel to write, a horror novel, and a romantic comedy short story. Get lots of money from my clients, though. ^.^ Writing for yourself is still the best, though. **

**Kara**

I took my sweet time waking up. Sometime early in the morning when I had been woke up by a rather vivid, confusing, and stupid dream I had cuddled up to Link's chest. Being the light sleeper he was, he wrapped me up in his arms and we had both fallen asleep like that. I could smell his foresty, boy musk scent and I didn't feel like pulling away from it any time soon. Though hard with muscle, he was still soft and wonderful to hug.

My hair tickled as Link breathed out a deep puff across it.

"Morning." I said.

He grunted something incoherent before mumbling, "I love you," and burying his face in my hair.

"What? Didn't quite hear you."

"Yes you did."

I grinned into his nightshirt and pulled away to take in his bleary eyed morning look. He blinked hard at me, then gave up and scooted down so he could nuzzle his face inbetween my breasts. Though I wore my nightgown, it still flooded heat into my stomach. It was about as far as we had gotten over the past few days, after I woke up with him tucked into my chest like that. When I decided it actually felt pretty nice, I decided to do nothing to stop him, and he took my lack of protest as permission to do so.

"What's the plan for today?" I asked, digging my hand into his messy blond hair as I hugged his chest to me.

"Plant. It's late in the season, but they should do okay."

"Have you ever grown anything before?"

"I grew up in a forest, love. Plants are sort of my forte'."

"Oh." Though a part of me thought growing plants outside of the forest would be a different case, but I didn't say that. It wouldn't change anything, we still had to be somewhat self-sustaining, married adults as we were. It's not like I knew any better about growing plants, coming from a desert, where most people didn't even try.

I smoothed out a lock of his gold hair as I remembered home, using its softness and his scent to protect me from the steady blows of homesickness such thoughts usually would induce. I was half way through making a clumsy braid one-handed when he ran his nose up my chest and to my chin, where he pulled away just enough to kiss my neck. I shivered.

"May I?" he asked, voice quiet against my throat.

May he do what? I didn't know, though the nervous tremor that started up whenever he touched me had turned into something like an excited flutter. He probably wouldn't go too far.

"Sure."

He kissed up the rest of the way, around my chin, my cheeks, my hair, until finally coming back down to lips when I had long been quivering from the heat growing in my gut. I had anticipated it, for sure, though before it had frightened me. Maybe I still had some waking up left to do.

"Kara," he breathed, tickling my lips with his own as he said it.

"Yeah?"

Not sure where he was going with that, but he had moved away from my face and was kissing back down my neck. Then, somewhere near the vicinity of my collarbone, he said, "you smell really good."

"Um, thanks? I've been working on it all night?"

He laughed and nuzzled his face between my breasts again, this time sliding a hand from where it had been at my waist carefully cup one of my breasts.

Weird feelings, weird feelings, totally weird feelings. I could feel his fingertips barely resting upon the nipple.

"When do you have to plant stuff?" I asked, trying not to sound as breathless as I felt.

"When I don't have to man the mill."

"Speaking of which, it's awfully bright outside."

He froze, than groaned, cursed, and threw off the covers to scramble out of bed. I smiled at his back as he scrambled around for his tunic and pants.

"Dang it dang it dang it! The Lindenburg's had said they'd come first thing in the morning, dang it! Good going, Link, starting out a great reputation for reliability!"

"I think they would understand," I said, propping myself onto a hand to watch him from the bed. "They were newly-weds once too."

"I can't assume every one will, though." One boot on, now two. "Okay, if you need me, I'll be-"

"Hold on for a second."

He fidgeted, but held still as I got up, grabbed the brush from the bedside table, and proceeded to attach his bedhead. He cringed out of my grasp.

"I look fine!"

"You haven't even seen yourself."

"I don't need too, because it won't matter what I look like if I'm not there!"

I rolled my eyes. Lucky for me he didn't see me, or so I thought, for the next thing he was in my face, smirking something not unlike Shadow's most frightening smile.

"Are you mocking me?"

"Your head looks like a strangled cat."

"So you are."

"And if I am?"

He yanked me to him, squashed me against his chest, and proceeded to kiss me senseless. Somewhere along the line I felt the bed press up behind my knees and the next thing I knew he was on top of me, desperately pressing every piece of himself onto me.

"Oh, whatever, I'll just get a new job if I have to," he groaned.

I tried to push him back, not really wanting to, to tell him that, well, jobs were jobs and to be a responsible, but he must have sensed my true intentions for he just gave me that wicked smirk again before biting into the curve where my neck met my shoulder. I gasped and he flinched back, startled.

"I'm sorry, I don't know why I did that, I just-"

I cut him off with my mouth. A rush of daring came over me and I pulled one of his hands back up to my chest.

"I'll stop you, don't worry."

I hadn't realized just how much he was holding back until I said that.

And, well, what happened next is really none of your business, though I can say it wasn't graceful, it was messy, and still hellishly embarrassing. For the rest of the day we couldn't look at each other without both blushing and marveling at one another, as though we had found a treasure we had never thought could exist in the soul of the other. Strange, how something so physical and emotional could feel almost like a religious practice, like arching yourself to some god in an ecstasy of worship.

Though when he had made the final step, I will admit that I burst into tears, not just because of the pain, but because of the suddenly overwhelming vulnerability that had come over me. I didn't know someone could get that close to me, go so deep, and it frightened me. It probably had frightened him too, for he instantly pulled back to kiss my tears and recite the promises he had made to me at our wedding. Even so, I just held onto him and cried.

There really was no going back now.

Sometime during twilight, after a day of fighting against the earth and grinding pounds of grain from the mornings orders, I had a desperate desire to be alone and took to the hill behind the mill, where a fence cut off our lands from a sharp drop off and the road that lead to the graveyard. Finding a grassy patch against the mill's stone walls that suited me, I sat myself down and leaned my head back against the cool rock. I tried picking out the colors of the sunset above me and find the line where the day ended and night began. I could smell the grass, the residue of wheat germ, and hear the beginnings of a cricket symphony. Beyond that I could hear the life of the rest of the village, or more importantly our neighbors.

All was well. All was well.

Then why did I feel so uneasy?

_You don't belong here._

I looked around, wondering if I really had just thought that or if Miyamoto had suddenly appeared while I was off my guard. I took a deep calming breath and settled back into the windmill's walls.

No. It's because there really was no going back now. I had gone all the way with Link, and there was no longer any room left to deny him or foster a hope for going back home. I couldn't leave him. I couldn't doubt him, or I would risk destroying myself completely and utterly. That had NOT just been a recreational sport you did in marriage back there, that was a trading of souls. I tasted him, saw the depth and breadth of what made him, and I'm sure he saw the same in me. Nothing in this world could convince me more of a higher power or a higher purpose to our existence then how closely I had seen him.

No turning back.

I clenched my eyes against the tears.

Mother. Cheyenne. Michael...Amanda.

No more.


	10. Heart in a Secret

**Review please! ^.^**

**Shadow**

The cut on my hand proved to be a pain for work, especially since it was on my left hand, which was my dominant one. Malon only watched me try to shrug it off for two days like a real gimp before it got infected on the third and she snatched at my roughly bandaged hand to eye the bloodstains with a sniff. Then she took in my probably poorly hacked off hair and her nose wrinkled.

"That's it, I won't look at you any longer. Grab a chair, will you?"

"Why?"

"Because I'm your boss, now do it."

I did plenty of growling to that. No matter how use to being her farm slave I was, doing anything, no questions asked, because anyone told me just rubbed my nature wrong in every direction.

Nevertheless, I dropped the rake I had in the time (we were doing our daily mucking out of the stalls), took up her milking stool from the corner, and waited with it until she returned back into the barn with a pair of scissors, which I eyed distrustfully.

"Sit down."

"What are you going to do?"

"Fix your head. You look like you have a dead cat on it."

I snorted. "Never knew there was a dress code to shit scooping. What, am I going to scare the horses away?"

In answer she casually walked behind me and before I could even turn she had me tight by the collar and my butt thwacked down onto the stool. I winced plenty.

"Now, hold still. I wouldn't want to cut off the tip of your lovely long ears, now would I?"

I did my best hiss of disbelief, but did as she said, glaring at the ground as she did so until she pulled my head back by tugging on said ears.

"Wish my hair grew as fast as yours." she said.

I grunted. Better let her think it's natural. Though I didn't look forward to when she noticed I needed a cut every other week, if not every week, to keep it at any length shorter than Link's, at least shorter than his at the time of my creation. I had once played with the idea of cutting my originals hair in his sleep to see what would happen.

She took longer than I expected her to, and the feel of her fingers fluttering across my scalp to pinch out locks of hair was oddly soothing. I couldn't remember a time I had had anyone's hands in my hair other than my own, and I tried not to over think it. I wasn't much of a touchy person, unless it was with my fists. Living out most of your existence in a cursed cell in a water temple no one visited did that to you.

But I did remember when I had finally reached out to someone. I remembered the feel of her hair through my fingers, soft as silk, and cool as dew until you reached the warmth of her body.

A familiar, raw aching space in my chest gave an awful throb and I closed my eyes against the pain, but felt nothing other than a sudden dark numbness in response to it. Maybe this was what depression was like. Dark. Unfeeling. Pointless.

I didn't even realize when Malon had finished until she was kneeling in front of me, waving a hand in front of my face.

"What's got you in deep?"

"Nothing." I said. My new haircut felt much smoother beneath my fingers and I reluctantly thanked her. It did feel better, at least.

"You look better, that's for sure. Almost handsome." She had straightened and looked at me now with her chin resting on the back of her hand. "But really, what are you thinking about? After the other day I think I deserve a little closure from you as well. It's only fair."

"Well, life isn't fair."

I almost wasn't even surprised when she yanked me back down to the stool with her man-like strength and gave me her that signature, bossy, slave-master glare.

"Din, stop being such a girl and just tell me. Were you raped too?" She smirked.

"Why do you always go to the extreme?" I looked to the barn's ceiling, as though it could fall down on us and change her mind, or at least distract her. "Can I get a day off if I tell you?"

"I was going to half your work today because of your hand anyways, aren't I so loving?"

"Oh so." But given that, I knew the stubbornness of this ginger, and tried to bury myself in the dark numbness to avoid feeling my loss of dignity when I spoke. "I've never really been touched before. Gently, that is, except by her. She's the only one I've...touched, without meaning to hurt. To just feel."

"You know how wrong that sounds, right?"

"I don't care." I bowed my head, remembering her hair, her smell, her lips on mine. I couldn't find the means in me to say anything more, not because I cared that much for my pride, but because the heavy numbness had turned to something heavy and cold that took my voicebox with it.

When I felt her nails lightly scratching the top of my scalp, I flinched back.

"What are you doing?"

"Touching you." she grinned as she crossed the space and put her fingers to my hair again. "She isn't the only one anymore, is she?"

I stared at her, tracing the freckles, the grey-blue eyes that watched her own hand, and the thin pink lips. I couldn't imagine a woman being any more opposite to Kara in everything except skin color, and maybe with dark brown eyes.

Without thinking, I reached out my injured hand to her arm, to press my fingertips against her freckled skin, but quickly rethought it and retracted it just as she brought back her hand and left to get a broom. I examined the clumps of pitch black hair around me until she got back and handed the broom to me.

"Mr. Injured can handle cleaning up his own hair, can't he?"

Annoyed, I snatched the broom from her and stood to sweep. She cooed something sarcastically about 'Shadow's grumpy scowl,' then went back to mucking out the stalls for the day.

I remembered how her touch had felt, though, for the rest of the day, if anything just because it helped the memory of Kara's touch be less meaningful and vibrant. She tried to give me a job that wouldn't aggravate my cut hand for the day, but seeing as it was my freaking hand we usually ended up swearing at each other, me for her stupidity and her for my 'assholery.' By lunch, however, we were back to friendly terms as well as our card games and lemonade beneath a tree.

"What kind of life have you lived to have never been touched like that?" she asked over her sandwich, trying to make me comfortable by sounding casual.

"Not a very long one." I put down my chosen cards for my turn and took a bite of my own sandwich. Farore damn, I loved the cheese here. I could've had a straight cheese sandwich for lunch and be happy, but the sliced ham and lettuce didn't hurt.

"How old are you?"

"Don't know. You going to move?"

She put down two sevens. "How can you not know? Did you grow up an orphan?"

"No. And yes." I fingered through some fives. "And if you know what's best for you, you'll stop there. Trust me, Malon, you don't want to know what...about my past. Just let it add to my handsome mystic."

I expected her to roll her eyes, to smile, or even to scowl. But she just looked at me, her face betraying nothing. It unnerved me and after putting down my cards I took a swig of my lemonade to avoid her gaze.

"You know the darkest part of my past," she said sometime later, so quietly I almost lost her words in the breeze. "Not knowing yours makes me feel too...open. Like you know to much."

"Look, I'm only trying to think of you when I keep this from you. It's nothing you need to know anyways, and something I'm trying to forget. And it's not like I'm going to black mail you with your secrets or anything."

"Yeah, because you don't have any other friends."

And just like that, she perked up, and we both dusted off the crumbs from our hands to get back to the rest of the day's much lighter work. It wasn't till we both had our hands calming a horse who had gotten a rather painful stone stuck in it's hooves that it hit me that she had just called herself my friend. I don't know why it should feel weird to me. I thought I had come to terms with that idea days ago, but then I realized I hadn't. Making friends, realizing friends, anything that really had to do with friends and all other mushy, gushy, sing-a-long-worthy crap like that just didn't come naturally to me. I was made to understand those things just so I could be the opposite of them.

My mind kept going at it long after dinner and into my loft, where I stripped from my sweat-crisped clothes and washed myself of the days dust and grime. Friend. Did Malon realize just what kind of creature she had decided to draw so close to her by calling me that? Her bruises had just faded away from our brawl, and even now I could feel her fingers on my scalp and her gentle smile.

_She isn't the only one anymore, isn't she?_

I watched the water I had hauled up the ladder to the privacy of my loft drip through the floorboards to the stalls below. A tiny river against the grains of wood and old, bent straw.

What happened when you told someone your secrets? Is that what made them a friend? Was the heart of a man in their secrets?

Malon had said she felt vulnerable because I knew her secret, I knew of her darkness. Even as I sat watching the dirty water drip down my leg I thought I could just grasp what she meant in the form of the sense of responsibility and in the passion in which I had responded to the knowledge. Maybe that's why I had felt such a refined, yet raw rage in her defense, because I had been given her heart then. Maybe that's why she felt vulnerable to me, because I had her heart in my hands, and therefore the ability to hurt her in simple negligence.

Washed clean, and brushing a hand through my wonderfully short hair, I decided that I thought to much. It didn't change what I wanted to do, knowing why I wanted to do it. If anything, it just made my want into an undying urge that told me I wouldn't be getting any sleep tonight.

Thus, I pulled out my old black clothing and mail, took up my dark silver sword and boot knife, and slid down the ladder to find myself a horse.

Because apparently Malon's dear father, out of pity, was the one who hooked old Indigo up with a place to stay. Poor fool saw as much of my dark soul as he did of his ex-employee.


	11. A Voice in the Dark

**Review please! And thank you all who have supported me through the first Fantiality as well as this. I'm also sorry for the shortness of this chapter, it's to make up for the VERY long one from Shadow's point of view that is coming next. ^.^**

**Kara**

I woke up when the warm body besides me vanished and the cold of the bedroom wheedled in to nip at my bare skin. Shivering, I wrapped the blankets to my breasts and sat up.

"Link?"

"I'm still here, love."

"You okay?" I rubbed hard at my eyes, which felt as though they had been glued shut in my sleep and wouldn't open.

"Yeah. Just can't sleep. Something just keeps bugging me."

"Hmm?"

"I don't know. But go back to sleep. I promise I'm not going to go far."

A little flutter of panic made me force my sticky eyelids the rest of the way, but to little use as the room was pitch dark. The one window had heavy curtains over it, and the door to our room was still closed.

"You're going somewhere?"

"Just for a walk around the village. I'll be right back."

But my sleepy mind got paranoid, and somehow it just became hyper-aware of the fact I was in Hyrule, a land with monsters, and that translated to my brain jumping ahead in the story where the handsome, wonderful husband get's mauled to death, leaving his wife to regret not stopping him for the rest of her life.

I didn't know when I had started making pathetic, frightened little whimpers, but then I could feel his warm hands brushing across my shoulders and to my face.

"Shh, nothing is going to happen to me. Go back to sleep, love."

"But what if some monster jumps out at you and—and-"

"I'm the Hero of Time, Kara," even in my adled state I could hear the smile in his voice. "And I was going to bring my sword anyways. It's just to settle my mind so I can sleep, all right?" His breath puffed across my face and the bed creaked before his lips met mine in a sweet kiss that didn't break off until he was sure my heartbeat had settled. Then he kissed the lids of my tired eyes, brushed my shoulder, and left. The last I saw before falling back into the cozy nest of blankets and mattress was my Link, framed by the embers of the kitchen fireplace and with a sword hilt poking over his shoulder.

The next time I awoke was not nearly as pleasant in the least, and twenty minutes at most must have gone by, for I didn't feel like I had slept for long. It only took me a moment to figure out what had waken me.

Someone was in my room.

I held perfectly still, my fists clutching to my breasts. What should I do? This didn't feel like Link. The other wasn't breathing, nor did they move, but I could almost feel them behind me in some corner of my room.

Not to mention I was butt naked under my blankets.

Oh yeah. Rapist or a murderer. Only two things I could come up.

The few seconds I spent staring at the back of my eyelids, anticipating coldy, pervy hands or a knife to my throat ticked by like an hour.

"Kara."

All concern for my nakedness ran from my mind as I flipped out of bed and onto my feet, eyes opened as wide as they could go in an attempts to pierce the darkness. I could almost see the outline of a figure in the corner. Just almost.

"Amanda? Amanda?"

But the more I blinked, the more whatever afterimage of a shape I had seen grew faint.

"Kara," her voice was barely more than a thought. "I hurt."

And then I felt alone once more. Goosebumps had risen on every piece of my flesh, and all my breaths felt as though they gotten to filling up my stomach uselessly rather than my lungs. My knees shook and I fell onto the bed, all the while scrambling for the lamp and lighter at the bedside.

When I did finally manage to get the dumb, stupid medieval thing alight, though, all I saw was the same bedroom. The only other person was my own reflection in the vanity's mirror, holding up a lamp and looking pale and vulnerable with no clothes on and my eyes all wide.

"Amanda?"

Not even a breeze from outside answered back.

**Oh! One last thing: while you folks are waiting for my next update of Fantiality Infinity, would you like to see the other story I am working on right now? It's called Godless, and I'm having a lot of fun with it, thought I'm a bit nervous as to how it's turning out so I would love to hear your thoughts on it. It's a Legend of Zelda fanfic. You can read the little summary under the title. **

**I can't wait to hear what you think. ^.^ You guys already honor me so much by enjoying my Fantiality series. **


	12. Shadow in the Dark

**Oh gosh, this was fun to write, though now it's super late. If you find me switching from first person to third, please let me know. I think I fixed all of that, but since I write several stories at the same time, sometimes I can lose track of which view I'm in for a particular story. Usually, I catch myself, but you never know.**

**Oh! And I noticed a lot of you went back to reread chapter nine. You pervs... :P**

**Please review!**

**Shadow**

I imagined Indigo to be a brute of a man, broad shouldered, heavy set, and ugly as sin. To me, he had to be, in order to force anything upon the wild, untamed monster that was Malon.

The scrawny man I had by the neck, however, was anything but that. He even had a round paunch, and the only thing heavy set about him was the hair on his arms and poking out from his nostrils.

He made the most wonderful face, though. I could even swear I saw a gleam in his eyes promising tears. His lips were thick and shiny with spit, and even as I shoved him back towards his bed, my knife to his chest, his tongue kept dashing out to lick it madly.

"What do you want? Just take it, I won't say a word, just please. Please."

"Please what?"

A dark pleasure ran through me, almost like a caress, at the sound of his whimper. I knew I sounded terrifying. I was made to be so after all.

"Please don't hurt me."

I grinned. This was just too rich. "Ah, but then that would defeat the whole purpose. I've come an awful long way to pay you a visit, Mr. Indigo. But you're being so good, so I guess I can't be disappointed."

I pushed him back—hard—into the wall, where the coward sunk down to the floor, knees too jittery to hold up that ugly paunch of his.

"Who are you? Why are you doing this? Please, just take my money, I'll even swear not report you."

"You can keep your Din damn money, and as for me," I crouched down low, being sure to keep my dagger's point on him as I met his eye. "Let's just say I know what you did to a certain lass."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Course you do. Now, if you'll just strip down, sir bastard, and we'll get this done with."

The man paled so quickly, it impressed me. "Strip?"

"Just those lovely pajamy bottoms, if you please. Unless you'd rather not then I can just cut through them. I'm not picky."

The complete and utter audacity of my question must have woken him up or something, for somehow he found the pride to be indignant with me and even managed to straighten up against the wall and give me a glare.

"What kind of sicko are you? If you don't leave this moment, I'm yelling for the town guards. A few live just a house down, I'll have you know."

I rolled my eyes. And he couldn't even come up with a worthwhile threat. How pathetic. "Let's not make this messier than it has to be. You should feel lucky I'm giving you the chance to save some dignity by taking off your own pants."

Indigo spluttered, a glare of pure malice and disbelief thrown my way. I had my hand on his neck the moment I noticed him taking a deep breath to shout, and he choked.

"Now you're just being boring." I flipped the knife down, right towards his crotch. I thought of Malon, of that damage I had seen in her eyes, and my grip tightened. "Really boring."

Indigo's eyes were bulging, and his mouth uselessly gasped his pleadings for mercy.

I tore off his pants, revealed the ugly hairiness within, and could feel my canines pressing like fangs against my lower lip in the intensity of my rage. I didn't smile. Whatever it was, it couldn't be called a smile, and smirk sounded too kind.

"I want to see your eyes," I leaned in close, pressing the tip of the blade to his naval. "I want to see it to your core when you admit your shame for raping Malon. I want to see your guilt. Look at me!"

His wet, gasping, fish-like lips opened wide for air, and his face lengthened in a long, silent scream of surprise. I loosened my grip a bit, because I wanted him to live through this, after all.

"She asked for it—she wanted it-" he wheezed.

The purring, pacing lion within me froze with a vicious growl.

I made my first cut.

He screamed, even past the pressure of my fingers. The darkness within me filled me with heat, danced in my heart.

"So she never said no?"

Choking, gasping, eyes watering, he just burbled some more, pathetic pleads to leave, to stop, to anything other than what I was doing. His legs, which I had pinned down with my own by his knees, spasmed with pain beneath me.

"Answer me. Did she say no? Tell me or this knife goes to your gut!"

More spittle, more wheezes, but amidst them I heard the word I was waiting for. The one that would unleash the pent up lion in me, the one that would darken my soul till I couldn't even remember anything outside of that Water Temple cage.

"Yes."

I finished my cut. Like slicing the tendons of a cucco leg.

I stepped out of his little hut as though from a poisonous, drug induced dream. My hands felt sticky with blood, and my heart pounded a cool, steady rhythm. The night had become too bright for me, and I walked through it, relishing in the loneliness, drenched in the shallow relief of my revenge.

I could still smell him and his rotten blood in my nose, and it gave me a sickening, too sweet satisfaction, like rotten fruit.

"What have you done, Shadow?"

I stopped. I could see the exit of Kakariko village, and the lone tree before it would only take a few more steps to reach.

The sound of the original sent the usual gong of discomfort within me. I squeezed my fingers, hearing the sticky smack of my knuckles peeling as I spread them out again.

"Something you should have, probably."

"You're covered in blood."

"I wouldn't call this covered. More like sprinkled. It's more the hands anyways."

"I heard the screams. Lucky me I happened to be passing the house."

"And?"

"What did you _do?_ Tell me now."

"Oh come on, you don't even really want to know."

I heard the soft shush of blade sliding out of its scabbard. Why he still had that thing, I didn't know.

"So much for becoming domesticated," I said, in the reflected light coming off his blade. "And if you want to know so badly, here, a present."

I tossed the bloody rag in which I had used to wrap up my prize. He caught it and showed his experience as a warrior by not even flinching at the blood. When he pulled back the flaps of cloth, however, he didn't seem to understand what he saw. Then, the most wonderful expression came on his face, twisted with disgust in horror, and I hooted with laughter. That would complete this night, that look right there.

"Oh gods, your face!"

"Whose is this?"

"Indigo's. Oh, and don't worry, he's not dead."

"Indigo?" he tasted the word on his mouth, searching his memory. I could see his stupid little brain working, and saw when it finally dawned on him. "Why would you...?" Then it clicked. He did have to have something in there to solve all those inane temple puzzles after all. Even in the faint lighting I could see his face pale a bit. "Malon. He did something to Malon."

"Not something, Hero. I hope you know I have much more tasteful hobbies than going around castrating random men." I jabbed a finger down at the cloth. "You can keep it, even. I was planning on giving it to Malon, but on second thought, I don't think she'd much appreciate it, being a proper lady and all." Ha, now that was funny.

"This shouldn't have happened. I got him kicked out as soon as I could, I thought nothing had happened,"

"Wait, you knew?" And did nothing? Well, I already hated the guy, so what was one more stone to the pile?

Link scowled at me. "It was something I found out in the other time line, okay? He wasn't exactly closed about it when he thought himself the overlord of that ranch, so I when I came back I did what I could to get Indigo fired, and once he was, I thought she'd be safe."

"Thought?" I shook my head. "Din, Hero, did you even bother to talk to her about it? Of course not, sex is a no-no subject for you. Probably was too busy blushing yourself silly at the thought to even know how to approach the subject." And sex and Link brought up unpleasant thoughts in my mind, which darkened my heart, if possible, even more. "I wouldn't be surprised if you haven't even figured out to bed your new wife yet. Tell me, how is it?"

His face flamed up with that special rage and hate he kept just for me. I saw the sword lift in front of him and his stance lower.

"That's none of your business, and don't you even dare talk about her with your filthy mouth!"

"Who? Kara? I can talk about her if I like. We're friends, after all."

"Like hell you are!"

I tched at him, like a parent to a child who had done something silly. "Bad words don't fit you, Hero. Might have to wash that mouth out with soap." And because I could still smell Indigo's blood, still feel the sickly-sweet taste of vengeance, I said lowly, quietly, "She knows how I feel about her, you know. I kissed her, even. Maybe twice, maybe thrice, lost track skipping behind your oblivious back. But you know all about that from your wonderful, honest wife, eh?"

Another wonderful look of shock on his face and, could that be? Was the Hero hurt? Oh, baby.

"Shut up! You're a liar! Like she'd ever kiss someone as dark and ugly as you!"

"You're right. I am pretty dark. That's why she chose you, huh? Because she didn't want to feel bad choosing something so naughty. But then, I guess, that means I might just appeal to her more. The forbidden is always more exciting, and," I smirked at his growing horror, ready to set the final bomb. "Poor Hero is too good to even pleasure her right."

"Why you-!"

I was more than ready when his blade came smashing into me with my own. As a copy of the Master Sword, my sword had to have the power to negate the magic his gave him, as well as equal might of that legendary blade. So, once I beat aside his commoner's weapon I flung my own down upon his. Our blades met with an ear-splitting clang. Metal flashed in the too-bright night, and the point of his sword, broken from the rest, fell a few feet away into the dirt. He stared down as his snapped blade as though unable to believe what he saw.

I didn't give him the chance to recover, but slammed my fist into his gut and my shoulder into breast. He choked, stumbled, and a kick to the side sent him down.

Oh for the love of Nayru, that felt good. Tonight was the night of paybacks.

I put my sword to his neck. After so long, after draw after draw, it had finally come to the point where I had the original at my mercy. I could see the defiance in his eyes, and somewhere buried beneath it all, the lovely, intoxicating fear.

In that moment, all that served for the basis of my hate, my anger, my pain and anguish, came back with a vengeance. My lack of identity, the darkness, the loneliness, the favoritism given to Link, the protagonist of the story, the pathetic reason I was made, just so the beloved Hero could have one more monster to defeat-

And the reason Kara had turned from me. He was the man who got to lay beside her each night, not me. Out of all the women who chased after his pathetic, heroic ass, he had to take the only one I had ever wanted. The only one who could have saved me.

I raised my sword just enough to give the final blow, setting my foot hard on Link's chest to hold him in place.

"I will be your shade no longer."

The night was still too bright. My hands had gone numb with cold.

"_Shadow!_"

No other voice could have broken into my trance. As though pulled up by an unknown force, my gaze flew up to the pale, dark haired figure on top of the staircase. She wore a fine white nightgown that was thin enough to see her curves in all that blasted moonlight, and her hair, her long, beautiful, waving thick hair, flounced about her shoulders, begging to have hands tangled into it.

And her eyes met mine, sharp with a stinging alarm. Her hands had risen half way to her mouth.

"Shadow!" she screamed again, and it was an awful sound, coming all the way down from her gut. "Please no! Please! No!"

"Kara-"

"Don't! Don't! Please don't!"

She was in complete hysteria, tears cascading down her cheeks just as soon as they appeared in her eyes and her words not separated by even a single breath.

"Please! _Please!_"

I took off my foot. My gut had twisted into something awful, something more painful than I could ever remember experiencing.

My attention was to her, though. I felt desperate with alarm, and a need to rush to her, to fix whatever had gone wrong to make her so. And besides, didn't she have any idea how little that nightgown left to the imagination? And it was freezing out here. "Kara, you don't need to-"

"Please don't hurt him, Shadow!"

The last way she said my name, with all the implications in it, hit me like a punch to the chest and I stumbled back from Link.

What had I done? What had I been about to do? Right before her eyes I had almost slaughtered her new husband, the one she had given up all her hopes of returning back to her home and family for, the one she had based her fragile, new story on. I had almost destroyed all of her efforts—destroyed her, in one single blow.

She wouldn't stop crying.

And in that moment, as though in a brief flash of lightning, I got a glimpse of just how dark I had become.

I dropped my sword.

And ran.


	13. Freedom Lost

**Please be assured that it is through suffering that we are made, and through suffering that we find true happiness. **

**And I am sorry I ever found joy in it. **

**Kara**

I knew I had done something right when Link ran to me rather than in pursuit of his shadow. His arms enveloped me before he pulled away to cup my face.

"Hush, hush, it's okay, breathe."

"He was going to—his sword-"

"But he didn't. You stopped him. It's okay."

"No it's not!" And it wasn't. I had seen more than just a blade to Link's neck. I had seen a whole tragedy, pointless to the extreme, spread out before my eyes. I could still feel the horror and the overwhelming panic pressed hard against my skin.

"Kara, look at me, I'm okay, you're okay," and then his face crumpled. "Oh, goddesses, I'm so sorry for scaring you like that, I was an idiot, I won't do it again, I swear."

But even after I managed to suck in a breath I hadn't realized I needed, I couldn't stop crying. My fists that I had curled up against his chest were shaking like mad, and I couldn't shake the image of the sword coming down on his neck; of the frightening intensity on Shadow's face.

"Kara..."

After brushing a hand across the stream of tears on my face, Link stepped to my side and carefully swept me up into his arms, being sure to tuck my head close to his to remind me to breathe. I wrapped my arms around his neck, hard, trying to only focus on the feel of him in my grasp, convince myself that he was there, that he wasn't dead, that everything would be just as he said: all right.

He didn't try to push me away or complain at the tightness of my grip. I almost got down when it seemed he'd have a problem opening the front door while holding me, but he managed, and kept a tight hold on me until we were back in the comforting darkness of our bedroom. There, he set me softly on the bed and went to taking off my shoes.

"I fell for his provoke. I attacked him without thinking, I was immature. I'm so sorry, I won't do it again, I swear."

"You won't leave?"

"No, no I won't leave. I'm here right now."

And as though to press this knowledge into me, he put his hands on my up shoulders and rubbed them.

"Right here. I'm not going anywhere."

But something had awoken in me: a realization of just how fragile I had become. Link was all I had in this world. The only family, the only base, the only connection I had. No one would ever come close to replacing him, no one, and if Miyamoto ever got bored with his story or decided he needed to kill Link off to start the next game-

I pressed myself into his chest, trying to coil up into a small a ball as possible. The sobs hurt on the way out, and they didn't allow room for air. I thought I could feel my head trying to disconnect from my shoulders.

"Breathe, Kara."

"Don't die, please, don't die, don't ever die."

"Listen to me, it's okay."

"No it's not!" I wailed. "You could die! Like Tetra, you could so easily die! If you ever die, I'm coming along with!"

"Stop it, Kara!"

He shook me once, but firmly, and it shocked a hiccup through my sobs. I swallowed a breath and realized I had a death grip on his arms, which must hurt. I loosened them a bit and backed away to give him room, breathing in bounces.

"I'm sorry, I'm just, oh God, Link..."

He hushed me, caressing me and placing soft kisses on my face. When he seemed to be sure I wasn't about to hyperventilate myself into unconsciousness, he took off his boots and over shirt and eased me back underneath the covers with the promise of a warm cuddle—after I blew my nose about a hundred times, that is. It was embarrassing, but I hardly noticed in trying to scrabble my way out of the dark hole I had been pushed into.

The little bit of heaven in his arms pulled me back down to the present. I pressed my face up against his firm chest, breathing his scent in through my mouth. He murmured comforting words and kissed my head until he too eventually fell back to sleep, for which I was jealous of. Of course Link would be able to fall asleep after nearly dying at the hand of his dark side.

Unfortunately, not all of us were designed to be the heroes of epic fantasies. Some of us still felt like a high school girl in heart.

Exhausted, but wide eyed, I managed to ease myself out of his arms with a whisper of 'bathroom,' so the light sleeper would let me go. But I didn't head to the bathroom. Instead I headed back outside, taking a light blanket with me to ward off the chill. I went to the blocked off back yard of the neighbors to get to our ladder and climbed up it to the land above. There, I made my way back to my haunt behind the windmill, and hunched up against the stones.

"All right," I said to the silence. "I'm listening."

From seemingly nowhere, the Happy Mask Salesman stepped out of the shadows, smile wider than ever, hands clasped, and looking awfully scrawny in the face of his mask ladened pack.

"I didn't expect him to stop. That boy isn't meant to love, after all. I'm impressed."

I wasn't flattered. If anything, I just grew colder and nauseous. So Link should have died...

"So you called me out here like the creep you are to watch Shadow kill Link?"

"Yes." he said, without even hesitating.

"And what purpose would that have served?" Cold. So cold. Shouldn't anger make you hot? No. This was something new. Deep, icy, infuriating. I started wondering how quickly I could imagine my limbs to move, how soon I could have my sharpest sword in my hands, how quick I could run it through this man's body. The author's presence may be immortal, but not his avatar.

"I know what you're thinking." he said. "If you kill my vessel, I'll just kill Link. It would be oh so easy. Diseases do seem to come out of the blue, don't they? Or monsters. Oh, this land has such a good supply of monsters."

"Then why didn't you? Why Shadow?"

"Because Dark Link, as is his true name, needed to be reminded." And he sounded so light hearted, he could have just said that Shadow forgot his hat. "But you were reminded, so my purpose was served."

"What would Link dying do for you?"

"Didn't I just say? Reminded you. Tell me, little Kara, what did it do for you?"

I turned my head away from him. I couldn't look at him any longer, or I was sure I'd freeze to death. That, or I'd lose all control and start tearing out everything my imagination could think of, even if I had to throw myself up against the mental wall I could feel where my storytelling powers ended and his began.

"What do you want from me?"

"Obedience. Since you want to take this story so seriously, I'm going to let you."

"...for Link?"

"He will live till the day you die, which, if you allow yourself to come under the influence of my story, will be in your old age, in your sleep."

"So, since bribing me didn't work, you're threatening me."

"That's such a harsh word." he said, waving his hand in front of his face as though to push away a bad smell. "It is the way of stories for characters to die, especially for that of heroes, who are forever changed after their adventures. I thought even you would know that. Frodo Baggins, Eponine, Desdemona, Valjean."

"Funny, because most heroes I know of have, as we call it, 'happily ever after.'"

He gave me a simpering, pitying smirk. "Oh, you have so much to learn. But I find this more of an act of kindness, or of a win-win both ways. I can't have a rogue like you messing up the future of this story (I mean, just look at all the trouble your dear friend Amanda caused, releasing Ganondorf on accident and all that, tch tch), and you just can't live without your precious Link. And it's not like I'll be micromanaging your life anyways. You'll be free to live as you like, and I'll only drop in occasionally to drop a request or give you directions. Nothing big."

"You saying that makes me think it'll be big."

"Even if it is, you'll have Link till the day you die. Isn't that really all you want? Do you really need the ability to turn yourself into some winged freak and pull swords out of the air?"

"Who said I'd lose it?"

His head cocked to the side. "Bow to me, and I'll give you life. If you think about it, your story telling abilities really are worthless if that's all you can do. But, how it will work is that you'll let me in and you'll be able to do whatever I ask of you. Alone, your potential is meaningless. But, under my influence-"

"Yeah yeah, fine. You swear Link will live?"

What little I could see of his black eyes vanished with his smile. "Of course!"

"Till the day I die?"

"Till the very end of your life."

"And I'll die in my old age?"

"In your sleep." he added, as though he were some infomercial salesmen setting the final blow. "And he will die next to you in his sleep as well, free of pain."

I hesitated. This felt like a bad idea. Something within me was screaming at me not to. I didn't know what kinds of things Miyamoto would ask of me. He could get me to do anything. No character in all the games would be as directly controlled by him as I would be.

It would be a state even worse than Shadow's. Not a free-willed monster. Not a villian. But a puppet.

Then I saw the sword at Link's neck and my heart trembled. Was my freedom really worth that much?

"Okay." I turned my head to meet his eyes. "Do I need to sign some contract? Give you a drop of my blood?"

"I think your word will do. After all, should you disobey me..." he bowed his head coyly.

Link would die. Probably horribly.

"You have my word then."

And then I turned my head quickly so as to not show the weakness gleaming in my eyes.

The Happy Mask Salesman chuckled his lilting, high laugh. "Oh, child, no need to be so distressed. I am not a bad storyteller. My talent is heroes, after all."

"But there's such a thing as anti-heroes." I muttered.

"Those, I'd have to admit, were never a strength of mine. Otherwise, dear, pathetic, stupid Dark Link wouldn't be so utterly useless."

Before I could deny that, protest, say anything in Shadow's defense, Miyamoto vanished in a tinkle of wooden masks.

I sat there until the sky tinted pink with dawn and I couldn't feel my feet or hands for the cold. My nightgown had grown wet with dew, and I could hear the cuccos cawing over the roofs. When I did finally stand up, wobbling on my numb feet, I tried to stretch out my wings, tried to imagine the muscles, the bone, the sinews stretching to the morning sky.

Nothing. Not even a tingle in my shoulder blades.

My throat tightened. I crumpled back to the grass into a ball on my side, trying to breathe through the tears.

I could go anywhere in all of Hyrule. I could live my life happily with Link, leading a normal life, just as I wanted. But I would never be able to shake off this cage or the memory of what it had been like to fly, to be strong, to be powerful.

Oh God, storyteller, whoever is telling my story. Please. Please don't leave me like this. Even if I never had any control from the beginning, please give me back my ability to think I was. To grow wings or just to test the limits, because Miyamoto had been right! I had endless potential to create anything and only had the time to imagine wings, swords, and strength! Why hadn't I tested the limits at every free moment I had? Why did I get so caught up in Link and romance to never see what I could really do, even if this stupid wall of Miyamoto's is stopping me from directly affecting his world?

Please. Make this different. Somehow.

I am your story, after all.


	14. I Don't Hate You

**I'm a little worried this isn't interesting. x.x only one person reviewed on the last chapter. Nuuuu! And my husband isn't liking it either...**

**Well...WHATEVER! I'll just eat skittles without you!**

**Shadow**

"You should fire me."

Malon looked predictably surprised when I told her that hanging over my rake like a dead thing. It was times like these that I started missing my ambivalent existence in the Water Temple, where I hadn't needed sleep or food.

"I probably should for a plethora of reasons, but what are yours?"

"Just fire me already."

"Why don't you just quit?"

"Because I don't want to."

She snorted. "Now ain't that something. Stop slouching like that, it's your fault for being out all night."

I stiffened involuntarily. "How did you know that?"

"'Cause I'm not stupid. You took one of my horses, for one. Two, I'd hate to think of what you found to preoccupy yourself on the ranch to be this tired. Up, I said!"

She slapped the handle of her own rake to my arse, successfully pushing me back into the manure littered stall and into an irate mood.

"Din, you're such a slave driver."

"Gotta be to keep a lazy asshole like you going. But, since you're in a talking mood," I could hear her smirk even though I had my back to her. "What happened?"

"What happened when?"

"Don't play dumb." Another swat on the behind by the rake. "Whatever it is, it's making you mope. Doesn't suit you. What happened?"

A particular clump of horse crap was giving me problems, because somehow the creature had managed to aim right at a corner my rake couldn't get to. I'm sure any other rancher wouldn't care, but not Malon.

"You don't want to know." I said to her, truthfully.

Her eyes widened. "You didn't."

"What?"

I knew she meant something I was going to hate when her hand rose to her mouth mockingly. "Really that desperate to be laid? I thought prostitution was illegal."

I swore in loud exasperation and glared at her, to which she just giggled at (which was, mind you, one of the few feminine noises she made).

"I don't need sex to thrive," I growled, almost more at the poo in the crack which I had a rake tooth to, scraping madly.

"Sure you don't. But tell me already. It's not like you have any dignity in my eyes anyways."

She had a point. "Who said I was trying to save face?" Of course I was trying to save face. "I'm just looking out for you, so trust me when I say you don't want to know." Because she really didn't.

"Goddesses, just tell me, you're making me curious."

"No."

"Yes."

"_No!_"

"I know where you sleep, Shadow."

"I'm a light sleeper, I'd just like to see you try."

"When have you ever been so protective of me anyways? Just tell me already, I can handle it."

I groaned to myself. Maybe if I stuffed a bit of straw into the corner she wouldn't notice. It wasn't like it was that different of a color from the rest of the cobble stones. Maybe I could throw her off with the shock factor long enough for her not to notice what I'm doing. "I castrated Indigo."

Dead, sharp silence. I quickly threw in some fresh hay into the corner in a way that would make it look like I was just fidgeting nervously. It seemed to do the trick, so I went back to scraping out the rest of the stall. Maybe, if I finished these early, she'd let me go back to bed, and if I was even more lucky than that I might just die in my sleep. Death above horse shit. Sounded appropriate for who I'd become.

She stayed quiet and still for quite a lot longer than I had anticipated. I could have even taken more time covering up the corners, for she didn't show any signs of life until I had started on the next stall.

"You...what?"

"Castrated him. With a knife. No more wee-wee. Do you need me to draw a picture?"

"No, but..." she hesitated, expression both confused and somewhat disbelieving. "How are you even sure you got the right man?"

"Oh ho, trust me. It was him. Name was Indigo, use to work at Lon Lon ranch, knew a girl named Malon—really, just because I'm dark doesn't mean I cut penises for fun." She winced at the word 'penis' and I made a mental note of that.

"But...but...you can't be for real."

"Technically I'm not."

"What?"

"Just an inside joke."

She shook her head, and her nose wrinkled up at me, clutching her rake as though to make sure of where she was. "Stop playing with me, Shadow, what did you really do?"

I almost threw my rake at her. I told her what she wanted, shouldn't she be leaving me alone now? Letting me rake my shit and hate myself in peace?

"Believe it or not, ginger queen, but that's what I did." And nearly killed my original and, in turn, nearly crushing the heart of the woman I loved.

I ignored her, and when I finally glanced back to see how she was doing, she had gotten back to mucking out the stalls along side me. Once out, we worked together to scrape the crap into the garden, which boasted a wide array of many delicious veggies that I hardly noticed. If anything, I just wanted to face-plant right into that pooey dirt and let the earwigs and beetles from the plants eat me alive. Goddesses, life sucked. I sucked. I so, so sucked.

"Is that why you look like that then?"

I barely heard her and blinked at her owlishly through my own, dark gloom. She rolled her eyes.

"You have that look like you want to go into the barn and hang yourself."

How very intuitive.

"If you think I'm feeling guilty for what I did, I don't. Indigo deserved what he got."

"Then what's up? Come on. I won't laugh."

"Whoever said I was afraid of you laughing? Maybe it's none of your business."

She frowned and straightened, putting a fist on her hip. Aw crap, that pose meant business. Maybe if I started running now, maybe threw a knife at one of those stupid cows nearby-

"You made it my business when you beat on me like the savage you are and I let you keep your job, you sociopath! So just tell me what the freak is up so I can stop being bothered by your gloomy-ass face."

"So comforting," I said lightly, hoping to distract her with annoyance, but the pose didn't leave. Fists, hips, blond eyebrows furrowed, freckles probably about ready to pounce out like monster clones and attach themselves to my face...

I sighed, and looked back to the ground, where my hoe waited. "Malon, please, I don't want you to know. I don't want you to leave too."

"Leave?"

"Just...please. I don't want to change how you think of me."

"You want me to think you're a socially challenged asshole?"

Despite myself, I had to smile, though it probably looked as awkward as it felt. "Better than what I really am."

"Gotta be something exciting, seeing as you just hunted down and castrated a man...I should be appalled."

I looked at her in confusion. "You're not?"

"Oh, trust me, a good part of me is, because that's just nasty and not sociably acceptable in the least, but..." the corner of her mouth twitched, and the faint light that came to her eyes made the bright blue stand out against her hair, like turquoise against rose gold. Even when I blinked to remind myself that this was the butch ginger I was looking at, the jewel and heaven impression didn't leave.

"Thanks for caring that much. About me, that is."

When she said that I forced myself to grunt and unstick my hoe from the ground.

"And for saying that, I ain't putting up with any more shit for today. I'm going to bed."

"Oh no you don't!"

"Aw, come on, you were getting all mushy and everything! I only got two hours of sleep for little ol' you, you know."

"So you did do it for me."

"I didn't say that. You telling me about your crap with him made me feel obliged, and I loss sleep because of it."

"Sure sure, just get that hoe back here. We got weeding to do."

"You're such a slave driver, hell!"

"That's Ms. Slave Driver to you, slave! Get your ass back here!"

And, of course, since Malon could match me arm for arm on a normal day, when I wasn't exhausted to crap, I ended up with my face in the dirt and a triumphant, muddy ginger above me. I was starting to get real tired of having manure up my nose.

But, oddly enough, I felt just a little bit better. At least enough to not want to slit my wrists then and there.

Because, at least, I had made her a bit better for my existence.

"And by the way, I'm not going fire you, Shadow. You got a lot more blisters and bruises to get till I've forgiven you, and don't think I didn't notice you hiding that corner with hay back there in the barn."

And from Malon, I guess that was as good as saying she wanted me to stick around, and slitting my wrists wouldn't be doing that, huh?


	15. Closer

**I'm sorry how dark this has gotten. I have this thing of it always gets darkest before dawn sort of way with my storytelling. It'll get really awful, but please try to bear with me, because I don't really believe in tragedies.**

**Though this got me thinking: should this story probably be rated M? M kinda freaks me out, and I never read M stories, but I've also read T stuff with complete lemons in them, and I don't have any lemons in here. But there's some pretty dark stuff ahead. Hmmm...what do you guys think?**

**Kara**

Link was waiting for me when I stepped into the kitchen just before dawn. His fists were clenched, but his expression wan.

"Where were you?" The tension in his tone made me instantly ashamed.

"Behind the windmill."

"Why?"

"To think."

"Kara, you're pale, and I know that look. What happened?"

I didn't want to face him. I didn't know why, but becoming caged made me feel oddly guilty. Almost without thinking, I stepped back through the door to the windmill, hands to my chest, where the loss still fluttered. I tried to tell myself that I was all right, that I got what I had really wanted in the end, but before I could fix my mistake Link was to me in two long strides, hands out.

"Din, Kara, please, what happened? Come here."

I let him draw me in against his bare chest. The effect of having those strong, firm arms wrapped just so around me somehow broke the last barrier and I just hung there, dumb with shock, open mouthed with a sob too hard to be made by my throat.

"I gave it up." I croaked. "Miyamoto, I gave it up to him."

"Gave—wait, what did he do?" His arms had tightened, almost alarmingly so, and I could feel the vibrations of an unheard growl in his chest. "Where is he? Is he still outside?"

"He left a long time ago, but it's okay." I took a steadying breath and then said, more to myself. "That's right, everything is okay now."

"Kara..."

"I mean it. He...he just promised that we'd live a long, happy life together if I just gave up my abilities to him. It's no big deal. I'm just like everyone else now."

"You mean your wings and..."

"Yes." I wrapped my arms around his waist and buried my face into his chest. "I don't want to talk about this anymore."

"But he didn't hurt you, right?"

"Yes." But he almost hurt you, and I couldn't handle that.

"Did he threaten to kill you or something? Is that why you gave in? I thought you already knew he couldn't do that, he doesn't have a say over what happens to you-"

"He threatened to kill you."

Link had stiffened at my response. When I felt him move as thought to pull away from me, I cringed, but then his hand ran through my hair and his other arm remained around me.

"Oh gods, Kara...Kara..."

But having Link, solid and real in my arms, somehow eased the bands that had been around my chest since morning and I took in a deep breath. He was here. He was safe. And he would remain that way.

He murmured my name once more before I felt his lips grace the top of my head. They trailed down, light as butterfly wings, around temples, upon my earlobe, across my jaw, and then finally my mouth, where he lingered with his hand tangled in my hair. I could feel his sympathy and sadness for me there, but more than that, I could feel in the way he then pressed every line of our bodies together just how deeply his affections ran for me. I could feel it in the way his fingers tightened in my hair and his breath rushed out past my cheekbone.

Then, with a gentle nip to my bottom lip, he swept me off my feet as easily as if I were a child and carried me back into our bedroom to more fully draw in closer to me. I only realized how frozen I had become when his warm hands ran underneath my nightgown, almost burning compared to myself.


	16. Self-destruction

**Thank you to Daimee for the heads up, but I have an edit for you all: Indigo is Ingo. I know most of you figured that, but it's a silly mistake on my part. If I have the time, I'll go back and fix all the Indigo to Ingo, but just for now, let this note be your guide. **

**Shadow**

But it all changes when night comes. It steals your distractions, sends your reason to bed, and leaves you laying on your back and staring at the dark with the demons on your chest.

They pounded on me hard, those demons, or perhaps it was just myself. Horses snorted in their sleep below me, and I could hear the mice scurrying in the rafters above. But I couldn't close my eyes. If I did I'd be too tempted to return to the room in the Water Temple, where I'd stay, because that's what I had been made to do. To be a monster. To kill things. To maim and crush.

Even after trying to build my own life, I was still as dark as ever. Because the man I had seen that night, the man who stood with his sword to Link's throat and blood from another on his hands, had been just that: a monster. I had been cold with satisfaction, dripping with it, and it had tempted me to continue on with, not only Link, but every other soul that had dared wrong me. I had seen it then, my capability—no—my thirst for destruction and violence. I wanted it. Hell, even laying here in the dark, listening to cows and horses and crickets outside, I could still feel the itch and urge to run out and kill them all, just to feel the warmth of the blood and the sound of death and tearing flesh. I wanted to run, waving my sword around, feeling the weight, feeling the blade, seeing red. I wanted to be rid of it all. Fuck this world and its life, fuck all their stupid, controlled, lucky existences. Fuck them all! Fuck the storyteller, and then fuck me too.

I didn't realize I had started trembling until I heard the headboard of my bed tapping against the wall. I sat up and held tight to my arms, clenching my teeth in an effort to still the pathetic tremors, but they just went deeper, making my insides ache.

I couldn't close my eyes. The dark seemed so pale, and I wanted it to be darker still. I wanted it to hide me, to make me not exist anymore. There was no happiness or worth to being me. I would never become anything outside of the Water Temple, I should have known that from the start.

My heart pounded fast in my chest. I wanted it to stop.

Suddenly afraid of myself, I stood up, shook my hands, and moved to the ladder. At the last moment, whether by conscious thought or not, I took up my silver dagger and held it tight in my hand.

The barn doors creaked as I stepped into the starlit night. The moon shown down just as bright as it had the night before. Pebbles and dry grass pressed against my bare feet, but I ignored them, even when a stray thorn bit into my heel. Before me was the open, green expanse of the ranch, cradled within tall rock walls, like a fortress. No other living thing roamed here, and the night seemed to almost hold its breath with the quiet, edged with crickets. Not even the breeze made to stir.

And before I knew it, I was smack dab in the middle of that huge grassy land, staring up at the moon, trembling harder than ever. It stared back at me, uncaring. I wanted to destroy it to. I wanted to fling a knife up at it and watch it drip bright crimson onto the rest of the earth. I wanted to watch that crimson drown every one and every thing.

I wanted it to end.

I closed my eyes.

"Anyone." I didn't bother to whisper. "Anyone but Miyamoto. If there's anyone else there, anyone else writing this story, anyone else who has a say." I took a deep breath and I smelt dew, which, for some reason, brought her to mind: Kara. Beautiful, kind, soft, brave, and yet insecure little Kara.

Instantly the ice within me seemed to thaw, but my trembling increased. I had even almost destroyed her, the only one who had ever given me hope.

"Kara's storyteller," I said to the moon. "Can't you do anything? I can't exist like this anymore, it's just not in my nature. Miyamoto didn't make me to exist out here. I'm not human, I'm not even a person, and I can feel it. But I want so badly," my voice broke, and I couldn't breathe. The handle of the knife in my hand fit so perfectly in my fingers. "I want so badly...to be free. To be someone."

And I waited. I listened to the cricket night, looked hard into the rainbow of stars, felt every caress of air and feeling swirling in my gut.

Nothing.

Of course.

Good thing I didn't have those stupid, scratchy, overused gauntlets on. It gave me one less obstacle to remove in getting my blade to my wrists. I didn't even hesitated, didn't flinch, as I cut into one. If I hadn't felt so many battle wounds before, I would have cried out, but the pain only made me hiss, and the amount of blood that poured out and onto the grass startled me. But, feeling oddly welcoming and calm now, I turned to the next wrist and slit it as well, being careful to cut in deep.

Then, bleeding, my head growing light, black dots popping in my vision, I dropped my hands to my side and let the blade fall into the grass. I could almost hear my blood trickling onto the ground. It wasn't long before I found myself tipping onto my knees with dizziness.

"Kara," I closed my eyes to see her better. Who cared if I was being corny and pathetic? I could be as pathetic and lovesick as I wanted now. I could say her name as many times as I want, remember her all I want, because it was soon going to be all over and I wouldn't have to think about it again. I wouldn't have any pride to worry about, no dignity, no image, no new life...

And the rest of the world would be safe from me.

It was the only thing I could really do to deny what Miyamoto had created me for. By destroying myself.

I could feel my heartbeat in my wrists, hard enough to hear. But Kara stood before me, wearing that gossamer nightgown and with her beautiful hair brushing against my face. I could almost smell her.

"Shadow!"

Kara had wept. I could remember it, the panic, the hysteria on her face. Even in the face of Ganon and her corrupted best friend, I had never seen her look so. I had frightened her more than death, and all I had wanted to do was somehow make it better. Now I could.

"Oh my—_Shadow!_ Look at me!"

That wasn't Kara. But when I opened my eyes I couldn't see anything anymore. It seemed oddly appropriate. The pain was still there though, stronger now. I could feel something pressing in on the cuts, burning them, stinging them.

"Shadow, don't you dare close those eyes, you keep them on me, you hear? _You hear?_"

I heard.

But my darkness had finally come to accept me.

And in it, Kara welcomed me with open arms.


	17. The Light in the Shadow

**Kara is sort of out of my hands now, so the next few chapters are going to be focused on Shadow for a bit. When I get any say in what happens to Kara, or when something does happen with her, then we'll switch back to her.l**

**Please leave reviews! :D I want to hear what you think. I'm not sure how this chapter went, given that I've never had to deal with suicide or attempted suicide directly. **

**And Daimee...why do you want to believe that I believe in tragedy? I tried to make Luminescence a tragedy. **

**Shadow**

The wood and plaster ceiling confused me. My body felt as though it never wanted to move again, and my wrists stung and throbbed something nasty. Each thought moved through a haze, and I had to blink several times before I even recognized that they were even open. Sunlight poured in from the open window besides me, and outside I could hear cows mooing and birds twittering.

Then a familiar snore broke through. I tipped my head to the side to see Talon, slumped back in a chair, arms crossed over his chest, and fast asleep. His mustache shivered with each snore.

I looked back to the ceiling and closed my eyes.

When I opened them again the sunlight had turned gold and Talon watched me over a bowl of steaming stew.

"Why, hello." he said kindly. "Back to the living, I see?"

I turned my head away from him. The pity in his eyes hurt even more than the pain in my wrists. Doing so made me aware of the soft bed and quilts wrapped around me. I hadn't even noticed how I still shivered now and then, as though the loss of blood also made me lose my ability to keep my own body heat.

"Malon will be happy to see you're not going to die anytime soon. Shall I go get her?"

I really didn't care. I really didn't feel anything besides general, overall crappyness.

His boots tapped against the floor as he left. Only moments after he left did I hear running up the stairs and the door was thrown open. Malon stood in the doorway, face flushed, and her hair in disarray. I only saw a flash of something broken in her expression before it twisted into an all too familiar rage. Before I could even think of what to say she flew across the room and slapped me hard across the face.

"What the hell!" I cried.

"What the hell yourself!" she shrieked—like a freaking banshee. "Do you have any idea what you did to me? Did you even think what it would do to me to find my employee's, my _friend's_ stupid corpse in the middle of my ranch?"

And because she just couldn't contain herself, she slapped me across the face again.

"Ow!"

And once more. Slap.

"I get the idea!"

"No you don't!" And her eyes had gone bright. "You don't have any fucking idea!"

The pain and my own helplessness before her infuriated me, and despite the blood loss, I forced myself upright, startling her even when I bent over like some deflated scarecrow.

"No, you don't understand!" I seethed. "You have no idea why I even did it!"

"And whose fault is that?"

I growled to myself. Oh, how I wanted so badly to hit her back. "Just stay out of my business."

"Like hell I will! You're the one slitting your wrists and bleeding all over my property!"

"Oh, well excuse me, I will admit that was a bit of impoliteness on my part."

I saw her hand coming again for another slap, I even managed to raise my arm in time to deflect it-

But she didn't go through with it. Just stood there, hand raised, face flushed, and biting her lip.

Then she dropped her hand and burst into tears.

Like everything else she did, there was no romantic charm to her crying. They were loud, pathetic, open-mouthed sobs that reminded me of a five-year-old's dismay. And she didn't crumple to the floor all lady-like to bury her face in her hands, but stood there with her shoulders slumped and her hands fallen to her sides. She even tipped back her head, completing the broken child look.

I didn't know what to do. Somehow, watching her bawl like this was almost as bad as watching Kara, and without meaning to I grabbed her hand and pulled her to me, chest aching. I didn't try to hug her, though. I didn't even think I'd even be able to do it right. Comforting someone was just so obtuse to how I had been made.

"Malon..."

Hearing her name made her hiccup, but her crying didn't stop. I didn't let go of her hand. At one point I even got the strength enough to squeeze it.

Even though it had been my death she had ruined, and even though she really didn't understand a damn thing, I felt guilty. My existence was nothing but a curse, but I felt guilty for trying to save everyone from it. How messed up was that?

"Malon, don't cry."

"Don't tell me what to do, asshole." she whimpered.

"Really, Malon, please, don't. I'm not worth it. I was trying to do something good, that's all, because..." I took a deep breath. "Because I'm a monster. I'm a bonified monster. I wasn't made to be human or good or...anything."

She was still crying, but she managed to sense that I was finally confiding in her the way she wanted so she managed to sniff and bring her head up to give me her watery stare.

I steadied myself, buried my fear, and then did one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life by telling her everything. About not having a name or identity of my own. Of being Link's shadow. Of being nothing more than an obstacle for him in the Water Temple. I didn't have a family, I didn't have a childhood, and I didn't have the capability to be good, though I had hoped I did.

And after that, it all started pouring out, like a waterfall. I told her about Kara, about the storytellers, about how Din fucking much I was in love with that girl. Somewhere along the way her eyes dried, her sniffling stopped, and the night outside grew deeper. Talon didn't bother to peek in on us, though I could hear him murmuring softly to his birds down below and the clink of dishes.

Then I told her how I had almost killed Link. I told her all about that dark night.

I told her everything.

When I finally ran out, feeling pleasantly empty as though a great poison had been extracted from me, Malon sat at the end of the bed and her father's snores could be heard from down below. I expected, at any moment, for the ginger to jump up and flee, to tear me out of the bed, to kick me out of the house—anything. But she just sat there, looking at me with some soft, unreadable expression.

"So..." My throat hurt from use. "Don't...don't be sad over me. I was trying to do a service to the world...to Kara. And I'm sorry that I didn't think about how you'd feel finding me out there, I should of gone somewhere else. I just didn't think at all, just did, and it was just idiotic of me." I looked down at the thick bandages about my swollen, throbbing wrists. "I'm sorry."

When she suddenly stood up, I flinched.

"Calm down, I'm just getting you some red potion and food. You are hungry, aren't you?"

I stared at her in disbelief. "Didn't you hear a word I said?"

"Every one." she blinked at me. "And yes, you are an idiot, but you're going to sit there and be a good, non-suicidal boy while I get your medicine."

I was so stunned, I hadn't even moved an inch when she came back with a glass bottle filled with metallic, red liquid and a plate of bread and cheese. She set them down on the night stand besides me and handed me a torn off chunk of bread and the potion. I stared at her offerings as though I saw clumps of her own hair.

"Do you want me to slap you again?"

I took the potion and bread obediently. I took the potion first, not trusting myself to chew without choking myself, and instantly I felt hot threads of strength slowly returning to my muscles. The heartbeat in my wrists grew fainter and the pain a bit more bearable.

As I chewed the bread, Malon took her turn to talk.

"You're doing better than you think, Shadow. A desire to do good is the most important step to actually doing good. A lot of people in the world like to put up a facade of goodness and kindness just to turn around and stab their friends in the back through gossiping or thinking badly of them. Very few actually are who they seem to be, through and through-are good through and through.

And, as you are, having no childhood or any other foundation like anyone else, I think you're doing pretty well. You weren't taught to be good, but you want so badly to be. That's what I think you're really wanting, not just your own person or having the freedom to choose who you want to be, but having the freedom to choose to be good, to be happy, and that, Shadow, is no crime. It is never a crime to want to be happy."

I closed my eyes as I listened to her. I wanted these words to go in deep. I wanted them to touch the anguish inside me, at least before my mind started to refute or argue against her reasoning. Before I could disbelieve her, I wanted to believe her, if only for a second. I wanted her to be right.

"Wickedness, doing harm to others, that makes us miserable. Of course you're going to be hurt. I'm even surprised you didn't try suicide earlier. What makes us happy is doing good to others, and to ourselves. It's something even a child can understand—share, be kind, make friends, do what is right. And the fact that your heart somehow knows that, even though you were never meant to want anything to do with the light, is a miracle. There's something within you I think that storyteller, Miya-whatever-his-name, has nothing to do with. You know how to be good. It may be harder for you, but then, that only gives you all the more potential, doesn't it? Anything truly worth it is going to be hard."

I finished chewing and swallowing the bread she had handed to me as she talked. I could feel something small and vulnerable blossoming in my chest, and it frightened me, probably even more than facing the idea that everything she said only applied to real people, not monsters like me.

"Malon, if you had any idea what goes on in my head..." I didn't want to finish that. There was still a part of me that wanted to hide just how awful I was from her, even though I had just taken a chance to show it to her. Maybe, just maybe, she still hadn't seen.

"I'm not an idiot. Shadow, I heard you. I heard everything you told me, all your violent tendencies, how you want to just destroy and give up. I mean, you freaking castrated Ingo, that's pretty hard core. Now it's your turn to listen to me."

She leaned down to level her eyes with mine. For a terrifying second I was caught up in her sky blue eyes, framed with gold lashes, and bright with that inner passion I had come to know as her soul.

"You may think I don't see the darkness in you," she said, clearly and slowly. "But I think you don't see the light that I see in you. You are already a soul and a person. You have been all along. Now be a good boy and finish your cheese."

And like the obedient slave she had made me, I put the cheese she gave me into my mouth and took a bite, but couldn't bring myself to chew. Something was welling up from my gut, and I wouldn't have been able to swallow even if I wanted to.

Her eyebrows furrowed. "Shadow?"

I ducked my head, hoping to hide what I knew was coming.

"Shadow?"

My eyes burned and I put a shaking, painful hand to my face, ignoring the protests of my wrist. My chest had tightened to the point that I knew if I tried to take a breath, it would come out as a sob. Somehow, through my struggling to contain myself, I managed to swallow my one bite of cheese, unchewed.

Goddesses, I felt so weak.

Then I felt her arms twining around me and her long, copper hair brushing down one half of my face like a curtain.

"It's okay." she said softly. "It's okay, I'll still think you're plenty manly."

"I punch girls." Though I meant it as a joke, it came out sounding only hilarious pathetic and cracked.

"I'm not a girl."

I wanted to tell her no, that she was a girl. The softness in her arms, the feel of her hair against my face, the tenderness in which she held me—because, really, no man could hold another man like this and expect to get away with it. The way she held me was utterly feminine.

And only because she was so much a woman was I finally able to cry, with my face buried in her shoulder.


	18. Pushed into the Sunlight

**I'm sleepy, I'm hungry, I'm thirsty, I miss my boy, and I didn't achieve what I wanted to in this chapter. Gotta do it next chapter. Ugh, I hope this isn't too boring. **

**zzzzz...**

Course, crying all over the shoulder of a girl I met just a few weeks ago doesn't automatically make me happy, cheerful, and non-suicidal. If anything, it just made me never want to leave the room and bed she had put me in for the rest of my life, especially after I learned that it was her bed. If it weren't for the fact I had become so anemic I couldn't walk across the room without tipping over, I probably would have run away from the ranch, and therefore my shame, the very next day. I even thought I'd try it.

And, of course, Malon had to open the door right when I did. The look she gave me could have made any grown man scream, but of course, I stayed brave.

"Oh, how good to see you up and about. Thinking of running away."

"No."

She dipped her chin and looked up at me past those gold eyebrows. I didn't sweat. I didn't even gulp. Though I could feel the world starting to tip.

My tough man poker face ended up being ruined when I tipped into the wardrobe besides the door. And, of course, she didn't help or anything, just sighed.

"You're such a liar," she grabbed me by the arm roughly. "Come on, angst master, let's get your blood built back up."

By the time she had successfully dragged the anemic me down the stairs, through the house, and to the side of the barn where the garden was, I had black stars popping in my vision and had given up on looking tough. I had even started to grow a bit desperate with how I felt like I couldn't get enough air and how my knees shook horribly. Not to mention the bright, noonday soon felt as though it were trying to burn out my eyes. When she stuffed what was none other than a hoe into my hands, I just about nearly cried.

"Okay, okay, I was trying to run away." I said. "Don't make me do this, my wrists still feel like clumps of ground up meat!"

"And whose fault is that?"

"Oh, come on!"

"Don't give me that face! I'm doing this for your own good! If you want your blood to build back quick, you need to use it. Your body will adjust, and I brought out the last of the red potion to help you too. Besides, who knows what kind of stupidity will pop up in your head if I just leave you in that room to mope all day. Now," she pointed at the earth, "weed, slave."

Any redeeming, feminine like quality I had given her yesterday vanished when, upon me just standing there and looking at her in disbelief, she took her own hoe and smacked me on the behind again. It only took me one or two whacks of the hoe at some particularly stubborn weeds (that must have some supernatural powers to be able to grow that big while I wasn't looking), before my wrists forced my hands to no longer listen to me.

"Look, demon bitch, if you want me to work for you so bad, can it at least be something that doesn't involve my hands so much?"

She gave me another wack on the butt for the 'demon bitch' comment before gesturing me over to some horses in the padlock.

"See that Butter, that gold mare next to the shed?"

"Yeah...?"

"Catch her."

"Are you insane? I can't even walk here without wanting to pass out!"

"No, she needs her shoes redone. You can take all the time you need to, and if you feel like you're going to pass out, just try to aim away from a pile of dung."

I couldn't believe this woman. "What are you?"

Those blond eyebrows shot down and she lashed the hoe out at me like sword, stopping right before my chin. "Your boss, and don't think I'm still not pissed off after your stunt from yesterday. Especially since you tried running away after wards too. And I already said, this is for your own good."

"Like hell, this is revenge!"

An evil smirk curled up, and with her eyebrows angled down in a vicious V on top of it, even the shadow king me felt a flinch in the opposite direction. At the same time, something else squirmed in my gut. Din, how could something so foreboding look so utterly-

"Trust me, Shadow, if I was going to get revenge, you wouldn't even see me coming."

With that, she shooed me off, telling me to use my brain to lure in the mare if I had to, and I left in a sort of daze made up of both light-headed lack of blood and the smirk she had just given me.

It had been utterly adorable.

I was still stunned even when I found myself in the middle of the field being stared at by a bunch of curious horses, a handful of carrots in my weak, smarting hand. How the hell could the ginger butch pull off something so cute? Now, freak, how did I find it so cute? Especially after she had just tossed me like the heartless beast she was back into the sun when I could barely stand on my own two feet. Was I some sort of masochist? Oh no, I was not going in that direction. Malon was hardly even female, and I didn't even know how to get over Kara. I didn't even think I could move on from Kara.

The next hour or so was hell. Sure Butter the mare came closer once she realized I had carrots, but so did every other horse, and she ended up being one of the more shy of the lot, so I passed out a few times stupidly trying to fight off other horses and run after her. Of course I had already realized that Malon was doing this just to torture me, because we could always shoe the horse when we brought them in for the night to check their hooves for stones, but I also wasn't too fond of the hoe spanking and glare she kept giving me. And now that I had become physically weaker than ever, Malon could just throw me down flat on my back if I pissed her off. Couldn't that be considered physical abuse.

After the third time I passed out, I stayed down, rolling onto my back to stare at the bright blue sky that made my eyes water with its depth. Groaning, I threw an arm over my eyes and just laid there as, one by one, the carrots in my limp grasp was tugged out. Soon I had my own personal symphony of horses crunching away all around me. A few more nuzzled me with their velvet noses in search for more.

"Go away," I grumbled.

Of course, the horses don't speak English, so they just snorted as though amused by my attempt and snuffed horse snot into my hair. That goes far in saying how done and depressed I had gotten when I didn't even care.

When I felt the end of a stick poking into my side, I groaned again.

"Leave me alone, I've already passed out three times, isn't that enough for you? Freaking sadist."

"I'm trying to help you, Shadow."

"I don't want your help."

"Then you shouldn't have tried to kill yourself on my freaking property."

"Look, I said I was sorry, okay? Life sucks enough without you making it worse."

When a long moment passed without her saying anything, I thought she had left. But then I heard the squeak of her boots as the leather bunched together, and suddenly her voice had come closer.

"Fine. What do you want to do, Shadow?"

I almost responded with an angry 'sleep,' but I also knew that if I went back up to bed I'd just lay there for hours dwelling on my own stupidity and self-hate. I also knew sitting out the sun was already feeling like the pits, and watching Malon would just make me feel like the lump of lazy, pathetic flesh I was.

"A horse ride." I said, before I could even think. What was I, some pampered princess?

But she didn't refute it right away. She even seemed to think about it, and I lowered my arm enough to meet her eyes, the exact same color as the sky behind her. I quickly looked away.

"Won't that hurt your wrists?" she said.

"Everything hurts my damn wrists, and yes, I know, my fault. Look, forget I said anything, I'll just get back to chasing Buttache or whatever that thing's name is."

"Butter," she said automatically, as though by habit. "And I suppose we could go for a ride. Dad can handle the ranch for a few hours."

"I highly doubt that. Look, just forget I said anything."

"No! Now I want to go on a ride! I haven't gone forever."

"Then you can go."

"I don't want to go alone."

"Jeeze, so needy."

"Just get your ass up and come for a ride with me."

"No."

She made a loud noise of irritation. "Goddesses, you're so moody! Like a girl on her period."

That sort of did it for me. What was going on with me being demeaned down to just being 'moody' or a hormonal little girl sort of canceled out any sort ease I had. Despite the black dots that popped in my vision, I forced myself up to my feet and made to get away from her as quickly as possible without my brain knocking me out for lack of oxygen. I didn't stop till I was up in my loft in the barn. As sure measure that she wouldn't bother me, I even went through the agony and effort of hauling up the ladder.

Course, despite my efforts, she didn't come after me. I didn't know how long I laid there on my bed, roasting under the roof from the late spring n, before I finally gave in and stripped down to the bare minimum and passed out. When I woke up, the barn had grown dark, and my stomach was more than unhappy about being denied food the entire day. I tried to sit up, but it seems my body had had enough of me, for I only managed to become upright after rolling off the bed and landing on all fours. I fumbled for the lamp and flint on my bedside table, and when I finally managed to get some light around, the first thing I noticed was that the ladder had vanished from its place. Frowning, I went over to the edge of the loft, lantern in hand, to see it fifteen feet below me on the barn floor.

I cursed. So much for being a light sleeper. How the heck did Malon manage to do that without waking me up? Well, screw her. A jump like this was nothing.

But, of course, in my stupid, sleepy, blood deprived fury, I jumped down—not only forgetting about my clothes and the lit lamp—but also that I barely had any strength as it was.

And so, thus, I found myself in my undershorts with a face full of straw and startling the crap out of the horses.

"Ow,"

I didn't hear myself over the light laughter. In the dim combined light of the gas lantern in my loft and the moonlight peeking through the barn windows, I could see her just a ways a bit from me, leaning against a post with her hands tucked into her skirts.

"Din, I shouldn't laugh, are you all right? But oh, you just jumped for it, ha ha."

"Malon? Goddessess, what kind of revenge trick was that?"

"It wasn't! I accidentally dropped it on my way down from checking on you, I was going to put it back up but then I heard you wake up and..." she stopped, eyes dropping from my face and down to the rest of me. I could make out her face darkening slightly and she lifted a hand to her eyes, though the corner of her mouth twitched in a want to smile. "You even jumped down in your underwear."

I was still on the floor at this point, and everything about me smarted too much to move. I didn't even care anymore. I just pushed myself up to my feet, wincing, and leaned heavily against the gate of a stable.

"It's not like I'm naked or anything." And, with a strange surge of mischievousness, I said, "Go ahead and get an eye full, if you want."

Immediately she was on the defensive, which felt good, for once.

"Like I'd want to get a look at you."

"Good try, Malon, but though my personality might suck, I know my body's nothing to sniff at." Despite myself, I swaggered my way over to her. Sweet vengeance came when she stiffened at the sound of my footprints. Something within me gave a warning sound, saying I might be taking this too far with this girl in particular, but that fall had really hurt, and I was finding it hard to care.

I put an arm above her head and leaned in, not enough to touch her, but just enough that she could feel I was there. She had both hands to her eyes now, and her teeth were bared.

"Shadow, step back or I'll hit you where it hurts, I'm warning you."

"I'm not going to do anything to you. I'm just standing here."

"I'll kick."

"Just open your eyes."

"Get away!"

The tremor in her voice woke me up like a splash of cold water.

I took my arm back and turned around. I felt the dark once more. That was a bit too much. That was...that was too me. Especially when I knew about her experience with men.

"I'm sorry." I said, more like gruffed, as I leaned down to get the ladder back up.

"Asshole."

I didn't argue that. Asshole was tame.

Once I got the ladder back, I went up and dressed, then hesitated over my bed. Despite the weakness in my legs, I did feel a bit stronger. Perhaps the exercise today had done something. I though of my things underneath the bed, among which was the familiar silver blade, which I had cleaned and polished of my blood the first chance I had. Without meaning to, I remembered how the edge had felt cutting deep into my wrists. It had stung ten times worse than a bee sting. It had also felt oddly...euphoric.

When I went back down, because I was tired of my stupid annoying stomach reminding me that it needed to live, I found Malon still there, her hand over her eyes. She hadn't moved a muscle.

I saw Kara again and nearly killed myself right then and there.

"Malon, I'm dressed."

She lowered her arm. Her death glare was set and ready to go by the time it came down.

"I came to give you the rest of the red potion." Her look faltered however, and her eyes suddenly went wide. "Oh gods, Shadow."

"What?"

"I'm fine, there's no need to beat yourself up over that."

These words annoyed me. "Don't tell me something like that, Malon, I crossed a line I new I shouldn't have. I don't know what stupid light you keep saying you see in me, because all I see is just as you said: an asshole. You tried to help me today and I was a child about it, and not only that I've treated all your concern as an annoyance. Just stop."

"Don't tell me what to do!"

"Then I'm telling you you're a moron!"

Her glare didn't come back though. Instead, she just tilted her head to the side and gave me the look I hated above all, more that her slavemaster glare, more than hate, more than tears or anger.

I bowed my head and clenched my fists.

"Stop it."

"Stop what?"

"Pitying me. Just stop. I'm nothing to be pitied."

She didn't respond right away, and I almost turned around and walked out of that barn door and into the night forever. But, then she did.

"You're right. I'm sorry."

I lifted my head and stared at her.

"What?"

"You're pathetic, I'll give you that," she said, "but you're plenty strong. You have every means to become who you set out to be. You're just finding it harder than you expected and are being a jerkweed about it." she shrugged and took a flask out from the pocket of her apron. "Here, red potion. I got dinner on the table. I accept your apology for being your assholery self today. Clean up dinner and lose to a game of Snap to me and we'll call it good."

I couldn't believe this girl. I just couldn't. It wouldn't compute. Just earlier this day I had become convince all the soft words and comfort she had given me had been a fluke and she really was just some demon slave master. Now, just like before in the aftermath of the fistfight, she was shrugging it off, forgiving me, and offering me friendship and comfort once more.

I took the potion obediently and followed her like a zombie to the house. Without complaint, I cleaned up dinner, even though my wrists had by now bled through the bandages and stitches, and found myself far too distracted to even try winning at cards. And like the final blow to the whole day, once she won, Malon gave me that tucked chin, v-eyebrows, adorable evil smirk, which just made her father laugh and make comments of how he had no idea where she had gotten that look from.

The next day and the day after that, I did what she asked me too, and she was also careful to make sure she gave me plenty of breaks to recover. The red potion put a stop to my fainting spells, and by the end of the second day I could do simple tasks without blotches plugging up my vision. She kept me busy, and I didn't realize just what she was doing until I was laying in bed at night and feeling those demons pound on my chest. She was keeping me busy on purpose, to keep me away from the depressing thoughts, and so by the end of the day I was so exhausted, sleep came easy. She was afraid for me, or of me. I could see it in the way she kept glancing over at me and biting her lip. When I took breaks she hovered nearby, finding something to do so she didn't look conspicuous.

I wasn't stupid.

What I couldn't understand was why she cared. She had called me friend, but who honestly in their right mind would call me a friend? I had already decided that she had entered my tiny world, friend or not, and that had been enough for me, but what had I become to her? Had I really scared her that much?

I really had been stupid, slitting my wrists in the field like that. Maybe if I had just left it would have been better. I couldn't see myself being any good to her, and the worry and stress I caused her just seemed to be more proof of that.


	19. Remember to Live

**You know you're something of a writer when you keep writing even though you really need to pee. So, once I post this, I will finally allow myself to leave this chair to answer nature's call. **

At the end of the week she pulled me out of the house to a small bonfire in the field, where her father and a young man I didn't recognize waited for us. I had just worn myself down through a day of work, nasty red potions, and ignoring my almost healed wrist stinging at me, so to say my attitude towards her was less than spectacular.

"Sun's down. Sleep time." I growled at her. "Since you're too stupid to tell."

"Just shut up before I change my mind."

"About what? It better be good."

"It is good, you ungrateful brat, now stand by that fire and don't move until I tell you to."

The way she spoke to me would have sounded like any other conversation between friends—if you weren't listening to the words, that is. The scrawny young guy was giving us a weird look, and I glared back at him until he caught my eye and looked down. He had an old, dented violin that looked as though it's varnish had seen better days in his hand. Next to him was Malon's old man, for once looking wide awake, and smiling benevolently at me as he held a pear bellied guitar.

I had a bad feeling.

"Okay, first thing's first," she her hand on the underside of my chin. "Straighten up! You look like a wilted grapevine."

I grumbled, almost as though part of the ritual, but did as I was told. With Malon, you just did, or faced the consequences. It's how you lived with the girl.

She eyed me up and down. Pushed on my shoulders, relaxed me locked knees, and then slapped me on the arm to loosen all her hard work up. Then she nodded to herself with a small little smile.

And since I had never been in the habit to practice tact: "Like what you see?"

Her eyes snapped fire. "Nah. Too much like Link."

That shut me up. As always.

The loser guy sitting on the cart with his loser violin thought that was funny. I cut off his chuckles with one of my signature glares and he clammed up. Guy had a face like a horse, I thought.

Malon either didn't notice or didn't care. "Okay, Daddy, Brian, I think we're good."

"Any requests?" asked Talon, strumming his guitar. The kid, Brian I guess, readied his violin with a sort of wobbly gracelessness, a toothy smile aimed at Malon. I recognized that look.

"Got Marian's Jig down last week," he said, "right Talon?"

"Oh yeah, that one."

"Do what you like," she said, and then, to my dawning horror, she hitched up her pink skirts to her belt and slipped off her boots.

I had a really bad feeling about this.

Sure enough, the kid and the ranch owner trickled and then mashed together into a upbeat, well-rehearsed song. Despite his horsey looks and sad violin, the kid played pretty good. More than good. His fingers flew along the board and his bow moved through air. It was almost as surprising as the fact that Talon could play, but then, the lazy bum had to have at least one useful thing that he did with his time, right?

Malon bounced a bit to the beat, giving me a significant look, her red hair swinging side to side behind her.

"No," I said.

"Yes," she said.

"_Hell_ no."

"Boy, you swear at me again and don't start bouncing I'll kick your ass so hard you'll be coughing up shoe leather."

I looked at her, baffled. "Oh, come on, Malon, what's the point to this?"

"You'll see." she said with a sniff. "You got to trust me."

"But I don't-"

"_Shadow._"

I hesitated. But then she started reaching for me, her jaw went at that angle I knew meant a right-hook in the process, and I realized I really, really didn't want to be beaten by a girl in front of her father and some seedy kid who was probably in love with her.

So I told her the truth.

"I can't dance."

She stopped. The jaw slacked. I breathed a sigh of relief. Saved.

"Is that all?" she said.

"Well, besides the fact that it's humiliating-"

"Take my hand."

"What?"

"Grab my stupid hand, you moron."

"Okay! Okay!"

I took her hand gingerly, though she grasped my palm firmly. I could feel her callouses. These weren't the hands of a lady raised in luxury.

She pulled me to the side and took me through the steps, which I followed after under threat of punching and with my face as hot as the fire. I could feel Talon watching me and here that kids wheezes under the strokes of his violin.

I don't know when I actually started paying attention to the music they were playing. I knew it had been something with lots of happy quick notes and harmony, but I hadn't really listened. It wasn't till I started getting bored with the repetitive movements she was teaching me (I'm a fast learning with anything physical, thank you), that I took the moment to really listen.

I had always had a knack for music, thanks to being the reflection of the Hero of Time, who had been blessed naturally talented with music in order to fulfill his destiny. For the same reason I had come to avoid it for most of my time outside of the Water Temple. Anything that reminded me of our similarities I put off, hung away from myself. Thus, I didn't know how to dance. I plugged my ears to music. I didn't bother to try my hand at it.

So the fact that I actually started to listen...

Something woke up in me.

I started to ignore her voice and simply followed her, the beat, the fire. She weaved in and out of me, smiling, encouraging me, and a strange sort of bubbling disbelief made me take off my boots and follow after her. Soon, even the music players had stood up to swing to their own music as Malon and I trapezed about the fire. I must have lost my mind, because I had my head tilted back to the stars and was spinning like an idiot, letting the music, for the first time in my life, sing to that something in my soul that wasn't mine. But, for once, I didn't care. I made it mine.

I wasn't Link, after all.

When I finally let out a whoop of exhaustion and collapsed to the ground, laughing at some way or another Malon had tripped and made it into some sort of pirouette, I saw it again. The red gold of her hair gleamed like metal in the fire. The smile on her face crinkled up the corners of her eyes. And the way she spun pointed out, for the first time, the deep curves I had never cared to notice. With her hitched up skirts I saw her legs for the first time, which were shapely and strong, and that annoying poet within me told me she could beat down miles like a horse with those legs.

I stopped laughing. The horsey boy and Talon took Malon's finished spin and falling to the ground besides me to wrap up the song, cheering together and raining compliments on her head, as both a teacher and a dancer. She wiped an arm across her face and turned to me, beaming.

"There, was that so bad?"

I could only look at her. Something uneasy twisted at my guts. I wanted to curl away, run away, which was so unlike me it shocked me back to reality.

"Can I go to bed now?"

She looked surprised, as well as somewhat disappointed and hurt, but I pretended not to notice. The horse kid—oh yeah, he had a name, what was it? Whatever his name, he was glaring at me, though Talon only had the gal to look sad.

Toothy, gangly freckle face lowered his bow down at me like a spear from across the fire.

"She did this for you, you know. Organized this whole thing, just for you. The least you can do is say thank you."

So, I met her eye. "Thank you."

He almost dropped his bow.

Something in Malon's expression changed and she frowned. I could see a faint hint of pity coming on and moved to get my boots.

"Shadow?"

"Yeah, that's right man, go run back to your moping," said the horse kid. "I don't know why she doesn't just fire you, I hear what's you did."

Malon snapped. "Shut up, Brian!"

"What? It's true."

I didn't even bother putting on my boots as I made my way back to the barn, wiping sweat off my face with the edge of my hand-me-down brown tunic and fingering my bangs that had, once more, inched towards their original length.

In the darkness of the barn, I took an easy, deep breath. I felt confused. But mostly, I just felt the same old bitter depression returning to me to my proper place. Stumbling through the darkness, I found the edge of my ladder and leaned against it, tipping my head onto one of the rungs.

What the hell just happened out there?

The barn door creaked open and a shaft of light painted her figure across the floor.

"Shadow?"

I didn't say anything. I didn't know what to say, because frankly, I couldn't figure out what was wrong. I was just having a blast out there—good Din, I was, wasn't I? So maybe that had been the point. She was trying to teach me how to live again, to be happy. Goddesses, that woman is smart.

"Shadow?"

So, then, what was my problem? Why did I get all shaky need and wussy all a sudden? I had been out, I had been myself, I had even let myself go, so what happened?

And why was I suddenly getting freaked out that Malon was coming towards me?

"Stop."

I heard her footfalls stop at my word. I could just see her outline in the faint light that trickled in through the high windows and cracks from outside, where I could hear Talon and horse-face starting up another song.

She still had her skirt hitched up.

"What's wrong, Shadow?"

"I'm really tired of that question. Makes me feel like I'm your charity case or something."

"Well, smart ass, you are my charity case, because that's what friends do."

"Ouch."

"So get talking."

"Or what, you'll threaten me?"

"Yes."

"This can't be a healthy relationship."

"You're not healthy."

"Oh, and you are?"

"Just tell me what's wrong."

And somehow, through the tightening twist of my gut and my growing apprehension, I found myself stepping back from her, as though she were some monster. I couldn't believe myself, and with a snarl I grabbed onto the gate of a stall to stop myself. The horse inside woke with a snort and whinnied at the tension it smelled.

"I'm fine, Malon," I said lowly. "You...you were right. That was good for me. It helped a lot."

"I know." she said, and I could hear her smile in the darkness. "I didn't know you knew how to smile."

"Of course I know how to smile, I've done it before."

"No, you smirked before."

"Difference?"

"You smiled. Really smiled, like...for real. Like you meant it. I've never seen that before. And man, you said you couldn't dance, what a lie! I bet you can sing too, can't you? Hiding talents, are we?"

The wistful tone to her voice sent alarm bells I couldn't understand. My grip on the gate tightened. Good goddesses, what was wrong with me? I ran a hand through my hair.

"You did great, Malon, so enough with the compliments. There's a reason I don't dance and stuff, but you did good making me do it. It...it helped."

"Then what's wrong? Why'd you draw away like that?"

"It...it was just a little too quick for me. It's not in my nature to...to be happy like that."

A stunned silence came from her in response to this. And though I was telling myself that at the same time, something still twisted harder in my gut. That wasn't all. There was something else. And it scared me.

"That's really depressing." she said.

"I'm a depressing person, what can I say. Hard to be a happy-go-lucky hero killing monster these days."

"Okay, I get the idea, 'no pity and leave me alone.' Is there anything I can get you? Some water?"

"I'm fine." Just go away, already. Go away before I kick out one of the windows and start running for it.

"Okay then." She walked back, feeling her way through the barn. When she opened the door, she hesitated in the doorway and looked back at me. I wished she hadn't. The firelight from the bonfire brought out the metallic gold of her hair and lit up the curves of her legs again.

"If you need anything, you can ask."

"Yeah."

"I mean it, Shadow. No more suicidal tendencies without me knowing."

"Yes, _Mom_, can I have some privacy now?"

She scoffed, but then she gave me that small smile she had on before. I let go of the stall gate. Oh god, I might just be sick.

"Night."

And then, at last, she was gone.

And then I really was sick.

I ran to the nearest barrel I knew for manure and barfed up my guts. Then, to stop the heaving, I quickly washed out my mouth with the water from one of the horse's troughs, like some sort of animal myself.

Then, trembling, I heaved myself up into the loft and fell like the weakling I was onto my bed, grabbing at my hair as though I could pull it out by the roots.

"No." I hissed at myself, as maliciously as I could. "No, you are not going to do this. Hell no. Not to Malon. Not her."

Because I had realized that, where before I had seen just a butchy, freckly, too-ginger redhead, I now saw a woman who I was undeniably attracted to with red-gold hair and an undeniably sexy and adorable mischievous smile. But I knew what this was. Rebound. Get your heart broken by someone and then you fall for the first unfortunate individual who happened to give you a shred of kindness. A shallow, selfish attraction to satisfy your stupid hurt soul. I wasn't that stupid.

But then why was I so scared? Malon was the one who should be scared, attracting the likes of me right after she had just rid herself of a man like Ingo. She's prone to pity me, and through that she'd grow to think she loved me. It would be so easy. And she wouldn't give up. She'd dig her heels in like a mule, snarl, and wriggle herself into my arms the moment she smelled it, no matter how I warned her. She'd just think it was my pathetic self-esteem issues.

Thing was, it wasn't low self-esteem. I really was bad, I really was a monster. I'd make the most horrible lover, I'd be temperamental, I'd be abusive, I'd be violent-

And that made my stomach turn, because I'd suddenly see Kara's face all over again, panicked, stained with tears, screaming as I held a sword to her life.

Even worse is there'd be a chance Malon would try to fling her own one-sided love for Link on me, the pathetic Link-look-alike, and that was a whole 'nother can of maggots.

I still felt sick and ended up back down the ladder. I hated myself even further for the sudden weak stomach I had acquired, and all over some stupid bitch. What was wrong with me? What was freaking wrong with me?

Overheating, sweating, and shaking all over, I pulled myself back into the loft, stripped down to my underwear again, and collapsed into bed.

I hated me.

**Now...pee...**

**And please review. **


	20. Dragon Volkswagon Pooping Fish Lava

**Review, homeskillets! And I'm thinking about self-publishing a book, so if you have any thoughts on that, let me know. I'm a little afraid of trying, but it doesn't seem like any literary agent is going to accept it any time soon, and I have had it professionally edited already. **

**Anyhoo, to the story!**

**Kara**

The grassy area behind the windmill became my haunt. I tried to live my life as normally as I could—as happily as I could: loving Link, learning how to be a wife, a homemaker, a neighbor, an adult. It was fun and exciting, for the most part. I didn't see Miyamoto, but then, I never thought about him. Sometimes I could pretend he never existed. But every so often I'd look to the sky and want to touch it.

No. I'd look at the sky and yearn to touch it all the time. I wanted to fly.

And the pain of not being able to would always be impossible to ignore.

But it wasn't the memory of what had happened that night when I gave up my will to Miyamoto that frightened me. It was the possibilities. Seeing Shadow's sword to Link's neck had awakened far more than just my awareness of his mortality.

Like today. I didn't know where Link had gone. I couldn't help but think of a pretty young woman across the way I had caught watching us enviously. What other things could Miyamoto do to screw with our lives? What other ways could he control and manipulate this world?

The anxiety twisted my gut. Made me sick.

But Link came right around the corner just as I started thinking about her, a dead cucco over one shoulder and several empty wheat bags over the other. I breathed. He had just been doing the deliveries. When he noticed me, he smiled and kept his eyes on me until he could free his arms and wrap me up in them.

"I'm making dinner tonight." He said.

That would explain the dead Hyrulian chicken knock off. "This isn't because I can't figure out how to cook on a woodfire stove, is it? I do want to have housewifely duties, you know."

"Can't I just make you dinner for once? I like you."

The broadening, warming smile he gave me disarmed me. Not that I had much to fight with anyways. Of the past few days I had always felt exhausted, and the smoke from the stove only make me nauseous.

He set to work while I swept the house like a zombie. What I really wanted to do was sleep. Why was I so tired? I went to bed early every night. Maybe it was the stress. The possibilities. The hyper-awareness of all that could go wrong.

When Link finally set the bowl of cucco soup before me and sat across from me with praises of his magnificence of cooking, I found myself staring at the soup for several minutes before picking up my spoon and dipping it in. Even then, my brain kept shutting down, turning off. When it was on I kept thinking of that beautiful girl across town, or of the fact we lived next to a volcano, or the man across the way who had been crippled by a sickness.

I blinked. Link had set his hand on my other one, which had been limp atop the table.

"Kara, I'm worried about you."

"It's just because I can't fly anymore, give me some time to get over it." I replied automatically.  
"No, it's more than that. You hardly eat anything, you're exhausted all the time, and yes, I notice how you've been sneaking off at night to hide behind the windmill. Do you really think I wouldn't notice after living a lifetime of being attacked by monsters? If I wasn't so concerned for your health I'd be angry that you didn't consider telling me where you were going."

I wilted. "I didn't want to wake you up..."

"You should."

He didn't move his hand, nor did he make any attempts to continue eating dinner. Outside evening had fallen and I could hear the evening activities of Kakariko village; children wrapping up their play, women shouting for their families, dogs barking...

"You're doing it again."

I shook myself. "What?"

"Digging yourself into a hole in your mind." He tapped my head, as thought to emphasize it. "What's going on, Kara? Why won't you talk to me?"

"I'm fine."

"No, you're not. You've only eaten an apple and a piece of bread today. And yesterday? I'm not even sure you ate that much."

"I'm just a little queasy, okay?"

"Why?"

I was getting flustered now. Thinking about it all was one thing, talking about it was another. Talking about it might make it real.

But Link had settled his storm-blue eyes on me with a determination I had seen before when he faced down an opponent. I tried tugging on my hand, but he held it fast.

I sighed. I was too tired for this. Too nauseous for this.

Taking a moment to figure out just how to phrase all my building anxieties into words, I breathed deep.

"I'm afraid." I said flatly.

"Of what?"

"Of late? Everything. Just because Miyamoto said he wouldn't kill you or me doesn't mean he won't screw with us in some other way. What if you get a crippling disease? What if the volcano explodes and kills everyone around us and destroys our house? What if-" I choked a bit, embarrassed, and a bit afraid that he'd be angry, "what if you, I don't know, catch the eye of some pretty girl and get bored of me. That's not dying."

He was staring at me now. But I just started to ramble.

"I'm afraid he'll pop up any day now, I'm afraid he'll ask me to do something awful, of killing, of hurting, of getting really sick, of giving up my children-"

"_Kara._"

And he was at my side, wrapping his arms around my suddenly trembling body. My voice had pitched high into a yowl and I hadn't realized when I had started crying. It all happened so quick, but the time he had pulled me out of the chair and fast into his arms, I was in a full on emotional break down.

"Kara, relax, breathe."

Breathing didn't do anything. Breathing wouldn't change anything.

And now I felt sicker than ever. The smell of Link's delicious soup suddenly smelt revolting.

I pushed away from him, sweating, world whirling. He let me go just in time for me to stumble away and throw up what little was in my stomach onto the floor.

When I finally managed to come back to my senses, I was lying in bed, shaking like a bough in a storm, but otherwise feeling oddly empty, as though a poison had been extracted from my blood system. I blinked at the door, watching the shapes shifting in the firelight.

I don't know how long I laid there, just staring, my mind as blank as a slate, my stomach dimly aching, when Link reappeared in the doorway accompanied by a woman on the downside of middle age. Her dark hair was bundled in a knot on her head and she wore simple, plain clothes that somehow reminded me of freshly baked bread.

"Kara, this is Tonia, she's just going to take a look at you, okay?"

"Look?"

Link put his hand to my forehead, gentle as a kiss. A lamp was lit and I could see his tired, worried eyes and the premature lines I had never noticed. The woman came up besides him, bringing with her the smell of yeast and quilts. She gave me a kind smile.

"I hear you're not feeling well, little miss."

"I'm not sick." I said instantly, because panic was starting to rise in me. Sick? What would it be like to be sick here? Where there was no hospital, no medicine, no modern convenience at all—the crippled man in the village—the beautiful girl who had looked on at Link with such lust-

Link had me in his arms, shhing in my ear. I took great gulpfulls of air scented with the soft woman and his scent. Quilts, bread, trees, rain...

I steadied myself enough to bury my face into Link's neck. I felt Tonia patting my leg through the blankets.

"That's right, dearie, cuddle up into that boy of yours. He loves you an awful lot. He's going to make sure nothing happens to you."

His arms held me even closer.

"Kara, can I call you that?" she said.

My face was so muffled in Link's shoulder he had to translate my 'yes' for her. She coaxed my face away from him just enough so she could hear me as I answered her questions. They were very pointed questions. When was the last time I had my monthly, when did I start having these anxieties, when I started to find it was hard to eat, if my sense of smell was stronger than normal, if I was having any pains, etc. She also did a bit of prodding around my stomach and breasts as well as felt my temperature. When that seemed satisfactory enough, she brought out a little pouch from within her apron and took out an herb which she told me to suck on for a minute before taking it out and examining the weird little colorful dots that had prickled out on it.

I didn't know what the point to all this was. It wasn't like I could tell her that the storyteller who controlled her world and everything in it had threatened me and now haunted my every waking thought. If I wasn't so terrified all the freaking time, I'd be fine. I just had to go behind the windmill and feel the grass, breathe the dew, and remind myself that everything was going to be okay. Miyamoto, while annoying, wasn't necessarily evil, and it wouldn't set up his next game to screw in the little things of my stupid little life anyways. He had, as he just said, just needed to keep an eye on me so I didn't do what Amanda did.

"Well, guess that's good to know."

I came out of my thoughts with a confused frown. Link was several steps ahead of me, though.

"What? What is it?" he asked.

The woman gave him a sweet smile as she put the herb back into her pocket and straightened her apron.

"Everything she's going through is quite normal for the beginning."

"The beginning of what?" Now he was sounding like the panicked one.

"Of pregnancy, of course. I'm sorry, I suppose congratulations are in order. You're going to be a father."

There was a long, stunned, and very unnerving silence. She seemed to find the looks on our faces funny, for she started giggling a bit as she got up and started listing off herbs she was going to bring over for the morning sickness and other symptoms, as well as things I needed to be aware of to take care of myself that I didn't even hear.

"Woa woa, hang on," Link had started to let go of me, and I let him. "Are you saying all this fear of hers is normal too?"

"For some women, yes. A woman's body, when with child, can often go on the hyper alert to anything that could threaten the well being of herself and her child. Pregnancy is one of her most vulnerable times of life, after all. I'll bring over some sedative teas for that as well, but as long as you make sure to ensure that she feels safe and comfortable, that shouldn't prove too much of a problem."

My ears were ringing. A baby. Why did that sound so horrible?

"Let's see, it's the end of Spring now, so you should probably expect the baby after midwinter. Tricky time for a first baby, we'll have to be sure to keep an eye on that. The cold can be beastly."

She was still chattering as though giving us advice on how to save money buying groceries, and Link and I were just staring at her as though she had just told us a baby dragon would visit us in the morning with a goose and a Volkswagon Beatle that ran off of dead fish.

"No lifting heavy things, and whatever you crave, you better eat. That's the body's way of telling you what it needs. Take it easy, make sure to get plenty of sleep, drink lots of water, and I'll drop by every week or so to check in on you."

This lady's name was Tonia, right? Why did it sound like she was moving in?

I was starting to feel dizzy again. Little black dots popped up in my vision.

"And best you avoid chamomile, at least until you start showing-"

I felt myself tipping over. Link gave a shout. The black was coming in quicker.

I fainted.


	21. Danger of Beautiful

**!**_Just to let you all know, I'm working on publishing my debut novel. Unlike my fanfiction stories, I've actually invested into a professional editor and have rewritten it several times. It's a beauty, let me tell you. Not perfect, because that's impossible, but it's the best I've made yet. When it comes out, I'll keep it at a really low price so, if you all are interested, you can have it for pocket change, really. ^.^ Because I want you guys to enjoy it as much as I have in writing it. I'll have a synopsis of it on my profile, and when it's published, I'll also let you all know on my updates as well as my profile where to find it._

_And I'll also have a few free hard copies to mail out to anyone willing to help me spread the word. ^.^ Because, really, who doesn't hate marketing? Blegh._

_Anyways, I'll stop blabbing now. Enjoy your long awaited update!_

**Shadow**

Before leaving the barn that next butt-crack of dawn, I took my discovery and all it's nauseating feelings and tied them up tight. Then, I stuffed them into an iron chest, which I locked, then kicked into a visual pit of lava. When I stepped out and saw her, foggy eyed and with a bagel held in her mouth, I thought myself successful. My stomach didn't leap once. At least, not like it had with Kara.

She handed me a bagel, reminded me of the job today, then sent me over to some godforsaken corner to start hauling over the posts we'd be using. She met me with the weird-hole maker thingy that I could never remember the name to, yawning, with one of the horses following after her like a lost puppy.

For some reason, that made the iron chest float back up to the surface of the lava, not quite to the point of melted for good.

We started a good rhythm without having to talk much. She made the holes, I stuck the big-ass pole in (yay super strength), and then helped her fill in the hole with a mixture of some sort of brick mortar. By the time we had all the main poles in place, the sun had risen high enough in the sky to start burning through my tunic to my back. Malon groaned and wiped at the sweat on the back of her neck, which was exposed by the way she tied up her hair in a high ponytail.

"Goddesses, I hate the summer," she said. "I wish it would stay away longer."

I grunted in agreement, fidgeting. I could feel my sweat starting to make the tunic stick to me. I hated that feeling. Maybe it had something to do with having spent a majority of my time in a constantly cool water temple.

"I'm going to go get us a drink. You want some?"

"Yes, please."

"Kay. Bring over some of the posts while I do so, will you?"

"'Course, boss."

"That's Ms. Boss to you."

"Yeah yeah."

She gave me a brief smile, which made the lave pit seem less hot, for some reason, and left me to my itchy devices.

By the time I had gotten to the side of the barn where the long boards waited, I couldn't imagine surviving any longer under this stupid sun, especially with noon not even here yet. Deciding I'd risk the sunburn, I reached over my head and yanked off my top. The feel of fresh air on sweaty skin felt so marvelous, I sighed out loud. Then, it was back to the boards.

I had just finished my second trip and was leaning back to stretch my lower back when Malon finally returned, lemonade in hand. I didn't look at her as I accepted it, determined to push that stupid iron chest back down to the bottom of the volcano where it belonged.

The lemonade helped. Goddesses, she made it good. Maybe I could just rebound on lemonade. Nah, that'd get too weird.

"Uh, Shadow?"

I almost choked. Malon did not say 'uh.'

"Yeah?" Play it cool. Why was I panicking anyways?

"Could you put your shirt back on?"

I finally allowed myself to look at her to find her staring at her feet, face flushed with something a bit more than just heat.

As was my habit, I smirked without thinking.

"No." I said, just as I cursed myself. "It's hot, and this feels nice."

"You'll get sunburned."

"You don't care, you just like what you see."

This made her eyes flash back to their usual hardness and she yanked her hands, which had been gripping each other, apart.

There we go. There was my butch Malon, who was unaffected by men.

"I won't stand for your teasing, ass," she said.

"What?"

"You know what I mean. I'll have you know I don't want you to put on a shirt just because you remind me of Link."

Oh...that thought should have occurred to me. Why hadn't it? Had I really already changed that much?

"I don't know what you're talking about. This is my body, not his. Besides, he's wussier than me. Being a houseman will do that to you."

"You make it sound like he's wearing an apron and cooking pies."

"For all I know, he is. He's so wrapped around that girl's finger, it's pathetic."

She dropped my shirt thing at that and we were able to find some shade to collapse in and enjoy our lemonade under a nearby tree. A pair of horses watched us nearby, munching on some of the many dandelions that infested the place. Malon had a second jug of lemonade ready for me when I finished my first.

"What was she like?"

I lowered my bottle. "Who?"

"That girl. The one Link married."

"Kara?"

"Yeah."

I hesitated, swishing around the lemon pulp at the bottom of the glass bottle as I searched for the right words. My stomach had done an unpleasant little twist at the mention of her. Iron chest bobbing in the lava or not, the feelings Kara inspired I doubt would ever leave.

I took another drink before trying out my first answer.

"She was kind. Silly, naïve, too-easy to blame herself for everyone's suffering, arrogant enough to believe she has some part in every strife, stupid beyond belief, way to quick to believe anything she hears, but...kind. Almost too kind."

Malon leaned forward as she listened to me. She had her lemonade between her knees.

"Was she beautiful?" she asked.

"You saw her, didn't you?"

"Yes, but I'm not a guy."

"I thought it would be obvious."

"...You're right. Forget I asked."

We drank in silence for a bit. I watched some of the clouds pass and thought longingly of rain and how it would feel upon my bare, sweaty back. I wondered, faintly, if Kara had gained the confidence enough to do something like that, summon rain. The idea filled me with a renewed longing to see her, but the memory of her terrified face squashed it immediately. No. I couldn't see her. Probably never again.

I took another swig.

"Do you think I'm beautiful?"

I nearly choked. Somehow, I managed to get the lemonade down the right tube in time to give her an appropriate stare to that. She had her eyes to the sky, like me, her expression blank.

"Did the butch really just ask that?"

"Just answer the damn question."

"Oh no, I won't. I'm not that stupid. If I say no, you'll slap me silly, if I say yes, you'll think I'm in love with you. There's not good way out for me."

She sighed in exasperation. "This butch won't slap you or think you're in love with me, so just tell me."

"Why do you want to know anyways?"

"Because I just want to."

"It's not important."

"It is to me."

I just grunted at that. "Still not saying. Go ask Mr. Horse-face guitar player from last night, or whatever his name is."

"He doesn't count."

"Why? Is he a cross dresser?"

She snorted. "Know. Because he's been in love with me since I was ten. Not to mention the only girls he hangs out with roll around in the mud and don't see a bath for weeks on end."

I gave her a look. She glanced at me, blinked, then, as expected, scowled heavily.

"I don't roll around in the mud and I take a bath every day, thank you!"

"I wasn't saying you didn't." I said.

"Ugh! Whatever. Just forget I said anything."

"Dully noted."

With that, we finished our lemonade and went back to putting up the boards. Mostly I held them up while Malon hammered them in to the posts. Half way up one of the walls of what would soon be an eastward shelter for the horses, a cloud passed over the sun, cutting off the feeling of being baked alive. Both of us looked up with little cheers before returning to our work.

When the first raindrop fell, I couldn't believe it. Wish granted. I was delighted. I even went as far as to drop the board I was suppose to be holding for her to stare up in anticipation for the next, cold drop. She gave a shout, started to protest, but then stopped. When I glanced over to her she had her face to the sky as well, her eyes closed, gold lashes spread across her cheeks, and red ponytail reaching down to her thighs.

She still wore that stupid pink skirt. I was starting to think it was her work skirt. But, past that, I allowed my eyes to linger, just for a moment, her question from before floating back like a ghost. Rather than see just how different she was from Kara, I just looked. The baggy top of her dress didn't hide ample breasts. Her lips were full, wet from constant wetting in the hot air. She had freckles, but not so many as to be overwhelming. Just enough to look like someone had dusted acros her nose and arms, which held up her sky blue eyes when they were open.

And then the memory of her from the night before came back to me. Dancing like the flames herself, red-gold hair out and about her like a veil, eyes bright and large like a deers.

"Yeah."

Another drop fell. Then another.

She dropped her chin and opened her eyes to look at me.

"What was that, peon?"

"You're beautiful, Ms. Boss. Now don't let it get to your head and don't stupidly flirt with guys who look like horses from now on, kay? I'm dreading the day I have to help you watch children, might as well not make it any worse by making ugly ones."

She laughed one of her laughs where she threw back her head and the balls of her cheeks forced her eyes closed. More raindrops were falling now and I tipped back my head to relish in the sweet coolness. Someone liked me today. Gods, this felt good.

"Fine, then, you're beautiful too, Shadow. Don't let it get to your head either."

I scowled at the sky. "Excuse me? Don't go calling men beautiful, I'm damn handsome."

"Whatever."

"Hey!"

But she just laughed, at what, I didn't quite know until I found myself laughing too. The rain was falling faster now, and horses all across the field were trotting quickly to a roof, while a few lazy ones just flicked their tails and continued to munch.

I had completely forgotten about my lava pit. The metal chest I had locked away the stupid emotions sat unopened, but not locked either, somewhere on the sides of my mind, waiting to be opened.

Maybe...maybe it wasn't rebound.

"You know this rain's going to make the wood swell and the nails rust, right?"

"Shit."


	22. A Work of Love

**As promised. I have finished my projects. I am also halfway through 'Shadow's chapter, so give me a mo. **

**Kara**

I was sick. Sick and frightened. The only safe place was a dark corner high in the lofts of the windmill, which creaked and groaned against the breeze.

Today, it creaked because there was no wind, just rain, and Link heaved away at a grinder down below. I knew he couldn't see me. I counted at that. Last time he had found me up here he had freaked, but it wasn't like I had a huge belly to stop me. If anything I only had a hard lump nestled in my hips, though of late I'd been able to see the bulge when I looked down.

A grunt, and the scraping of flour into a bag. I clenched my shaking hands between my legs. They shook a lot lately, and I jumped at the smallest of things. I would've felt bad for hiding up here while Link worked so hard below if I hadn't finished the housework in the early hours of the morning when I couldn't sleep, or worked the garden late at night doing the same.

"Kara! Could you give me a hand?"

I winced. Guess there was no helping it.

He didn't spy me until I was halfway down the beams, hanging onto one like a monkey, and nearly ran to catch me as I made a jump to the ground.

"What do you not understand about being with child!" he almost snarled at me. "Goddesses! Have you even gotten any sleep today? I heard you sweeping before dawn this morning."

"Sorry," I whispered.

The meek tone, one I had to concentrate on in order not to use, softened him, and he sighed.

"Please, Kara…"

"Didn't you need my help?"

"Just getting this flour packed away. I need you to hold the bags open."

I did so, watching the brown, gold flecked powder as it slid down and thought, as I always did, of the fine bleached white flour of my own home. If I had my powers still…

"What you thinking about?" he asked.

"Flour," I said. "Multi-purpose flour. The kind from my world."

"Oh? I think you mentioned that. White as snow, finer than dust, used for desserts and stuff?"

"Used for everything." I fingered some of the flour left in the grinder. "This stuff is so coarse. No wonder old fogies have no teeth."

He chuckled under his breath, and for the next few minutes we filled the sacks in silence. As he tied off the last and threw it onto the pile with its brethren, he glanced down at his flour coated self and smiled.

"Up for a shower? It rained yesterday, and the water should be warm by now."

I liked showers. They reminded me of…they were meditative.

I followed him to the corner of the house where he had set up, under my direction, a stone stall with a drain at the bottom and a perforated circle in the ceiling. A small latch separated it from the water collector above it. I didn't pay much attention as we stripped, following the lines of the stones in the floor and the walls. I remembered black volcanic stones, copper sandstone, and off-white limestone. But these were grey. Different shades of grey.

A callused hand appeared in my view, running along the length of the small rise of my rounded abdomen.

"It's okay. You're safe." And as though to promise it, he closed the door behind us, leaving only the tiny rectangle window to light our closet sized room. His naked skin radiated the heat of his exertion and made my own skin look pale and wan. As I touched him, the shapes, the muscles, and soaked in the protection they gave, his own hands traced me, pressing lightly along my shoulders, my hips, my breasts.

"You've lost more weight," his voice sounded thin.

I said nothing. Though I rarely threw up, the constant nausea and twisted up guts made forcing food down my throat its own battle. Perhaps that was why my brain felt like dead weight now adays. Why I leaned my head against his chest and instantly felt my consciousness crawling away.

His fingers continued stroking until his other hand could pull the lever to let the water down, and there he smoothed out my long hair down the length of my back. I could smell his want, but could feel that his dismay was that much stronger.

"Maybe I can talk to the potions lady," he muttered, more to himself than me, he had gotten use to this half-awake, trembling version of me. "Get something to give you and the baby nutrition. Maybe something to help you sleep."

I said nothing, but buried my face into his chest and breathed him in. It was only during times like this that my muscles finally uncoiled and sleep came easy.

It wouldn't be the first time I fell asleep leaning against him in the shower. I woke up only long enough to realize the water had turned off and feel Link scooping me up into his arms. He sang low, soothing lullabies in a hum like a dream. I heard bits I recognized, and bits I didn't.

"Kara, I love you."

"I adore you," I breathed, catching him as he rose to leave me where he had laid me out on the bed. "I'm sorry this is so hard on you, I really am trying, I'll try to eat more, I'll—"

He hushed me, coming back down, still bare and warm. I drew the warmth in, hungry for it, desperate for the peace his presence gave me.

"I have work, love."

"Just for a minute? You feel so…safe."

He hadn't needed to be persuaded. Even skinnier and with a small bump of life in my stomach, he buried me beneath himself and tried to work out the frantic worry into his love making. I responded in turn by drinking in the comfort, the sedative, into the constant anxiety that plagued me in my pregnancy.

When he finally pulled away, it took me but a moment to fall back asleep.


End file.
